British banks dominate share trading this week

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse comments: "TD Waterhouse customers quickly reacted to the latest stock market rally with overall trades up 16% on last week. Most of the trading action focused on the UK's banks, which experienced gains ahead of much anticipated trading updates.

"Barclays topped the sell trades, as its shares rose to around 279p since their January low of 51p, demonstrating a renewed confidence in the strength of its finances. This will have been buoyed by Barclays' recent £3bn deal to sell its iShares asset management business to Blue Sparkle, a new limited partnership established by CVC Capital Partners. This was followed by more good news from Barclays that Q1 profits were up 15% compared to the same period last year.

"However, it was a different story for RBS who was the most heavily traded stock this week, accounting for two fifths (40%) of the buys and one fifth of the sells (20%). Buys in the banking giant more than doubled last week's figure at 58%. Share prices in the state-owned bank jumped by around 13% after it announced the departure of Gordon Pell and Alan Dickinson and this morning it reported a £44m loss in Q1 2009 compared to a £479m profit in the same period last year.

"Elsewhere it was announced that Tesco has made more money than any other British retailer in history during the last financial year, ringing up more than £1bn a week through its tills. Our customers continue to see Tesco as offering good value and have placed the retailer in the top ten buys this week."