TD sees trading volumes up by 140% during a volatile week
Darren Hepworth, Trading and Customer Services Director, TD Waterhouse comments: "We have seen record trading activity from TD customers over the past week, with overall trading volumes up 140% on the previous week. As worries over global debt and growth fears led to extremely volatile trading conditions in the markets, it appeared our customers were looking to bag discounted shares among the mass of falling share prices. In the week ending Tuesday, 9 August buy trades outnumbered sells by almost 3:1 having increased by nearly 150% on the previous week. The FTSE 100 hit its lowest level since July 2010, falling to a low of 4,796.97 on Tuesday (9 August) before recovering slightly to close at 5,164.92 the same day.
"Britain's biggest banks dominated both our top ten customer buys and sells tables this week as the debt crisis continued to grip the Eurozone and credit rating agency Standard & Poor's brought to an end the US's 70-year reign as a AAA rated economy. Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) remained in pole position in this week's customer trading tables after announcing a £3.3bn loss for the six months to 30 June on Thursday (4 August). The loss included £3.2bn that the company put aside to compensate customers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI). Despite allocating a much smaller £850m to cover claims for the mis-selling of PPI, Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) also announced half-year losses of £1.4bn on Friday (5 August). RBS moved up to third from fifth in our customer buys table and dropped one place to fourth in the sells. To complete the picture for Britain's banking behemoths, Barclays (BARC) took second place in both tables.
"There was better news for Aviva (AV) which announced its interim results last Thursday (4 August). The insurance giant reported total operating profit of £1.3bn, up 5% on the first six months of 2010 and finished the week as the fourth most popular buy among our customers.
"BP (BP) moved up the buys table to sixth from last week's ninth place as news emerged that it intends to sue one of the shareholders in its Anglo-Russian TNK-BP joint venture. It was also a new entrant in the sells table taking fifth place. Meanwhile, Rockhopper Exploration (RKH) also entered the top ten sells table, in ninth place, as the oil explorer reported positive results from the drilling of its third appraisal well at the Sea Lion feature in the North Falkland Basin on Tuesday (9 August).
"The only other new entrants into our tables this week were Vodafone (VOD) at ninth in the buys and miner Xstrata (XTA), which took 10th in the sells."