Top Ten Retail Investor Buys & Sells for week ending 12 October 2007

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse, commented: This week investors were spurred on by Thursday’s reports that the FTSE 100 had passed through the 6,700 barrier. This brought the index close to a seven-year high after last closing around this level in November 2000. News of this rise raised hopes for those who had fallen foul to the recent credit squeeze on the global markets.

Meanwhile, the six month protracted fight between Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Barclays over ABN Amro finally came to an end this week, after RBS declared its offer for the Dutch bank unconditional at €70bn. This has drawn a line under the biggest banking takeover in history and as such, investor activity was high in the two banks and both featured prominently on our top 10 buys and sells this week. After the credit crunch weighed heavily on the biggest banking takeover in history, some investors expressed concern that RBS may have overpaid for ABN Amro with pressure from Barclays bank. This market chatter was dismissed by RBS CEO Sir Fred Goodwin who also wrote off suggestions that ABN's value had been battered by recent market turmoil. Share growth for Barclays slipped by over 2 per cent this week with RBS down 4.65 per cent on the last seven days.

Meanwhile, TD Waterhouse customers took profits from oil giant BP this week and the Company ranks eighth on our top ten sells for the week. The share price increased by 5.15 per cent week on week, spurred on by promises of ‘significant restructuring’ from BP’s new chief executive Tony Hayward. The radical plans, released by BP on Thursday, will see many jobs cut and costs slashed and are focussed on increasing efficiency and improving consistency.

TD Waterhouse Top Ten Retail Investor Buys & Sells for week ending 12 October 2007

Top 10 Buys
1 Northern Rock
2 Bradford & Bingley
3 Royal Bank of Scotland
4 Alliance & Leicester
5 Partygaming
6 Barclays
7 BT Group
8 Experian Group
9 BHP Billiton PLC
10 Tate & Lyle

Top 10 Sells
1 Northern Rock
2 Barclays
3 Partygaming
4 Royal Bank of Scotland
5 Lloyds TSB Group
6 Burren Energy
7 Bradford & Bingley
8 BP
9 BHP Billiton
10 British Airways

TD Waterhouse Top Ten buys and sells are measured as the number of trades carried out in each stock over the previous 7 days.