Banking fever hits the UK

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse comments: “This week, banking fever continues to grip the nation as reporting season gets into full swing. Consequently, we have seen strong trading activity in the financial services sector amongst our customer base with UK banking stocks accounting for three-quarters of all trades during the week.

“On Tuesday, Barclays’ delivered a resilient performance when it stepped up to announce its 2007 results. Despite a 1% fall in profits the bank reported lower than expected write-downs and will be increasing its dividend by 10%. In recent weeks, banking shares have withered with reports of capital concerns but this week we have seen some much-needed optimism injected back into the sector as Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS saw shares rally on the back of Tuesday’s results.

Yesterday, Alliance and Leicester put a spanner in the works by reporting a 30% fall in annual profits attributed to market volatility and forecasting a difficult year ahead. On the back of this, their share price traded between 428p to 499½p during the day and TD Waterhouse customers reacted accordingly with the buy to sell ratio in Alliance & Leicester approx 3:1.

TD Waterhouse is closely following retail investor activity in the banking sector with forthcoming results due from Lloyds TSB (22 February 2008), HBOS (27 February 2008), NatWest/Royal Bank of Scotland (28 February 2008) and HSBC (3 March 2008).

Angus Rigby continues: “Also this week, rail contractor Jarvis saw renewed interest from TD Waterhouse customers. The Company issued a confident trading update last Thursday despite a profit warning and high-profile delays on its Network Rail contract over Christmas, which prompted its share price to nose-dive.

“Executive chairman, Steve Norris expected turnover to increase by £15 million in 2008/09 thanks to increased responsibility for operations in the East Midlands after Network Rail’s framework list was cut from six to four in September 2007. Shares in the Company have rallied by almost 35% this week on last but are still trading down 70% on the year after declining sharply last November.”

Customers can trade with TD Waterhouse from as little as £9.95, and online trades are free for the first month on new Trading and Trading Plus accounts opened before 30th April 20082. For more information about online trading or longer-term investment opportunities customers should log in to tdwaterhouse.co.uk.