Lloyds most traded stock at TD Waterhouse

Darren Hepworth, Trading and Customer Services Director, TD Waterhouse comments: "Lloyds (LLOY) topped both the buys and sells list this week as TD Waterhouse customers continued to trade heavily in financial stocks. Banks and insurers accounted for 48.3% of the top ten buy and sell trades in the week ended Wednesday 17th August, with buys outnumbering sells by almost two to one.

"Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) took second place on the buys list and third place on the sells list as it offloaded a £1.4bn loan portfolio book to a fund manager as part of its ongoing divestment of non-core operations. Barclays (BARC) was the fourth most-bought and second most-sold stock after announcing layoffs at Barclays Capital, its investment banking arm.

"Insurer Aviva plc (AV) remained popular among our customers - coming in eighth in the buys list and seventh in the sells - after RSA made a £5bn offer for its general insurance business. While the offer was rejected, some Aviva shareholders are now pressuring the insurance giant to realise value by selling off valuable units.

"Connaught plc (CNT) rose from seventh to fourth in the sells list and dropped from fifth to sixth position in the buys list after Lloyds confirmed that it would not seek to sell off its debt exposure to the beleaguered support services company, sending Connaught's share price up 11%. Troubled construction firm Rok (ROK), meanwhile, found itself fending off comparisons to Connaught in a week when the firm suspended its finance director and issued a profit warning.  This followed an accountancy firm uncovering serious failings in financial controls of Rok's plumbing, heating and electrical business. As a result its share price dropped 29%, with interest from customers pushing it to ninth on the buys list.

"Finally, Vodafone (VOD) moved from last week's tenth most popular sell to this week's third most popular buy as Indian regulators deferred a decision on whether to ban Blackberry services, which Vodafone provides, on national security grounds."