Housebuilders and commodities grab the attention of TD Waterhouse customers

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse comments: "The short week hasn't deterred our customer's appetite to trade and despite the top of this week's table being an almost mirror image of last week, there are some notable changes and new additions in the bottom few positions.

"The House building sector has become a constant feature of our weekly top ten with our customers continuing to actively trade on both Taylor Wimpey and Barratt Development. This week's table reflects trading activity up to Tuesday, 26th August, and by the eve of Taylor Wimpey's interim results trades in the company by TD customers remained flat - with almost equal buys as there were sells.

"Taylor Wimpey had a particularly bumpy ride yesterday with their shares falling over 10% after the company revealed a massive 96% plunge in profits and a £1.5billion loss in the first six months of 2008. The share price only marginally recovered during the day as the UK house builder blamed very challenging conditions. The bad news didn't stop there with the addition that house sales were down by more than 30%, 900 jobs will be cut as well as the closure of thirteen regional offices.

"The commodities sector has a strong presence in our top ten sells this week, with our customers storing up profits on BHP Billiton, miner Kazakhmys and oil & gas producer Dragon Oil. BHP Billiton has been a regular feature on our table this year and Kazakhmys, among the top ten copper producers in the world, recent merger talks will have certainly grabbed our customer's attention.

"Geopolitical tension between Georgia and Russia has not affected the independent Dragon Oil, whose main assets are located in the Caspian Sea and offshore Turkmenistan. As a result, our customers have taken profits from the oil company, which posted sharply higher profits and an impressive 87% rise in net cash."

"As another constant feature of our weekly top ten, banks are still very much the focus of our customers' trading activity, with the combined activity in Lloyds TSB, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS alone accounting for over a third (38%) of our top ten buys and 46.6% of our top ten sells.

"Bradford & Bingley (B&B) is a new entry in the top ten buys, but makes no appearance in our top ten sells, as our customers tentatively take a punt on possible returns after the poor performance of the B&B shares following its contentious rights issue. The UK buy-to-let mortgage lender left its underwriters UBS and Citigroup saddled with £328m worth of unsold shares, after just 28% of investors took up its £400m rights issue. Having failed to place the rump of the issue in the market, the underwriters have agreed a 20 day lockup during which they won't be able to sell their shares, although private investors can still continue to trade."