London Stock Exchange: Equity Trading Continues Strong Performance In August With 37 Per Cent Increase On 2004

Trading on the London Stock Exchange remained strong in August 2005, continuing a trend of significant growth in trading during the year. In total, there were 6.8 million UK and international trades carried out on the London Stock Exchange during the month. This was an increase of 37 per cent on the total number of trades during August 2004 and, following on from a record July, the third highest monthly number of trades on record. The total value traded across the Exchange increased 20 per cent on August 2004 to £395.5 billion, underscoring a strong start to the second half of the calendar year.

The average daily number of trades across the Exchange was 308,142, up 30 per cent on August last year. The average daily value traded was £18 billion, up 15 per cent on the same month last year.

The average daily number of trades on SETS during August 2005 was 190,287, bringing the monthly total to 4.2 million, an increase of 30 per cent on the number of SETS trades during August 2004. This brought the total number of SETS trades so far this calendar year to 33.2 million, up 27 per cent on the same period in 2004. The total value traded on SETS during August 2005 increased by 34 per cent on the previous year to £84.6 billion, and the average daily value traded was up 28 per cent to £3.8 billion.

Included in the SETS figures, SETSmm saw an average of 27,544 order book trades daily, nearly double the average daily number of trades in August last year. The average daily value traded on the SETSmm order book increased 86 per cent to £241.3 million.

Some of the SETSmm trading growth can be attributed to the transfer of 198 Main Market small cap securities onto SETSmm on 11 July, which brought the total number of SETSmm securities to 453. Compared with their trading performance during June 2005, their last full month on SEAQ, the transferred stocks benefited from a 25 per cent narrowing in spread, the overall average daily number of trades increased 47 per cent and the overall average daily value traded increased nine per cent.

The total value of ETF trades during August was £676.4 million, up 66 per cent on the same month last year, and the total number of trades was up by 24 per cent to 10,195.

In addition, August was another good month for IPOs on AIM, during which there were 18 IPOs raising £237.2 million between them. This brought the total number of IPOs on AIM during the calendar year so far to 229. The money raised by AIM IPOs this year to the end of August was £2.5 billion, more than the total sum raised by AIM IPOs during the whole of 2004.

There were 22 business days in August 2005, compared with 21 in August 2004.