TD Waterhouse customers fly to BA

Angus Rigby, Chief Executive Officer, TD Waterhouse comments: "For the first time in five weeks, sells edged ahead of buys increasing 87% compared to last week's activity.

"The FTSE 100 showed weakness when mining stocks lost ground following last week's highs after a mixed update from BHP Billiton (BHP) yesterday (21 April). This was further compounded by concerns amongst analysts regarding the long term impact on the recovering economy due to the disruption caused by Iceland's volcanic eruption over the past week.

"British Airways (BAY) entered the top ten buys this week, at number eight, following the six day flight ban affecting all airlines in Northern Europe due to the volcanic ash from Iceland.  Travel disruption continued after the aviation ban was lifted on Wednesday (21 April), with airlines estimating it could take weeks to return to normal service.  BA shares fell steadily after the International Air Transport Association estimated five days of disruption might cost airlines £1.1bn and analysts suggested that larger carriers would suffer more than budget airlines due to the higher costs associated with assisting passengers and the proportionately larger number of cancelled flights."

"Meanwhile Tesco (TSCO) leapt into fifth place on the buys table after sparkling results on Tuesday (20 April).  The supermarket behemoth beat forecasts with revenue up 5.6% at £56.91bn (£53.90bn in 2009) and pretax profit rising 8.9% to £3.18bn.  The grocer's international operations were lower than expected but prolonged weakness in its US Fresh & Easy chain was offset by a strong performance in Asia.  Chief Executive Sir Terry Leahy remained positive saying he thought a UK economic recovery was underway and that he does not expect a double-dip recession."

"Banking stocks maintained their ascendancy at the top of the tables with part nationalised UK bank Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) pipping Lloyds Banking Group to the number one spot on both the buys and sells this week and accounting for 28.5% of sells.  This followed a report yesterday (21 April) that the International Monetary Fund was proposing that all banking institutions would pay a bank levy to fund future bank bailouts, subject to an additional tax on profits and pay."