TD customers look to cash in on black gold
Darren Hepworth, Trading and Customer Services Director, TD Waterhouse comments: "Britain's banking giants accounted for nearly 55% of our customers' overall top ten trades this week as the International Commission on Banking (ICB) reported its final recommendations on Monday (12 September). The ICB report called for increased competition among banks and will also force them to ring fence their retail operations, in addition to increasing the amount of loss absorbing debt they hold. Meanwhile, Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) was the top sell trade in the week ending Tuesday, 13 September as the FTSE 100 closed at 5,174.25.
Darren Hepworth continues: "Barclays (BARC) CEO, Bob Diamond, said he welcomed the clarity provided by the ICB's final report on banking, and it was his company that was in first place in our top ten most popular buys table this week. Barclays accounted for nearly 26% of our customers top ten buys and almost 17% of the top ten sells, while Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) was placed second place in both tables, accounting for 17.6% of our customer top ten buys and 20% of the top ten sells.
"Despite all the news surrounding financial institutions this week, Gulf Keystone Petroleum overtook last week's respective top three sells - Lloyds Bank, Barclays and RBS - to finish top of this week's table. The oil and gas explorer appears to have been attracting the attention of TD customers after announcing successful test results from its Shaikan block in the Kurdistan region of Iraq on Monday, 5 September. Gulf Keystone's share price rose by 43% to just over 183p during the week ending Tuesday, 13 September.
"Gulf Keystone was also the fifth most popular buy ahead of Wednesday's release of its interim results and its plans to move to the FTSE 250 from AIM next year.
"Staying with oil, two of the three new entries in this week's sells table were Tullow Oil (TLW) and Rockhopper Exploration (RKH). Tullow Oil announced on Friday (9 September) that it had struck lucky off the coast of French Guiana and the FTSE 100 oil explorer's share price finished the day at 1406p, having closed at 1194p on Thursday (8 September).
"Meanwhile, Rockhopper - the only company to discover oil in the Falkland Islands so far - was 10th in the sells ahead of its announcement on Wednesday that it will cost around £1.3 billion to produce the first Falklands oil, adding it would begin production in early 2016.
"ARM Holdings (ARM), the third new entrant into our most popular sells table, launched into ninth place as it emerged the chipmaker is set to benefit from the 2012 release of Microsoft's latest operating system Windows 8."