Barclays, BP and BT dominate TD Waterhouse customer trading

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse comments: “It is perhaps unsurprising to see Barclays at the top of both the buys and the sells this week. Shares in the bank rose a massive 76% on Monday after an unexpected open letter from Chairman Marcus Agius and Chief Executive John Varley to reassure investors that writedowns would be covered by record revenue. It has been reported that the company will post pre-tax profits of £5.3bn when they announce results on February 9th. Barclays accounted for 42% of the top ten buys this week, but also for 37% of the sells as the banking sector continued to dominate the top ten.

“This trend is shown across the same three banks that are once again our top trades for the week. Customers are clearly looking to take profit from Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays following last week’s buying frenzy, which saw a buy/sell ratio of 5:1 in these three stocks alone. As share prices rally this week we see the buy/sell ratio is back on almost even territory at just under 2:1.

“Meanwhile, many appear to have had their fill of BP this week, with the company jumping to the fourth most popular sell and the fifth most popular buy. The company is planning to start a gasoil hydrotreater at its refinery in Carson, California this week, which will have the ability to process 265,500 barrels of oil per day. The refinery is California’s second largest and the news has seen shares rise by 4.2% to 508 pence. BP had only just snuck into our top ten tables at number ten in the sells table last week after the president for the Asia-Pacific region, Gary Dirks, admitted he didn’t know how much further oil prices might fall. This time round, however, the company made up nearly a fifth (18%) of non-bank sales.

“Finally, there is a re-entry into the top ten buys this week in the form of BT. According to press reports the telecommunications giant is in talks with both T-Mobile and 3 about the formation of a mobile virtual network operator, and this could be the key to the company’s storming into the top ten at number four – the biggest buy outside of the banking sector.

“Indeed, one fifth of the non-bank buys this week were accounted for by BT. Yet, despite its popularity, BT also made an appearance in the top ten sells at number eight, possibly after the group warned that it could take another charge on profits of “hundreds of millions of pounds” against two big contracts, one of which being the NHS’ deeply troubled IT programme to create an electronic record of 50 million patients.”