London Stock Exchange Monthly Market Report For August 2004 - August Equity Trading Up 22 Per Cent On 2003

August saw further year on year increases in trading volumes across the London Stock Exchange’s markets, with a 22 per cent increase on the same month last year in value traded and a 20 per cent increase in the number of trades. In total there were 4,965,401 trades during August with a value of £329.6 billion.

On SETS, the Exchange’s electronic order book, the average daily value traded was £3.0 billion, up 16 per cent on the same month last year. The total number of trades on SETS during the month was up 37 per cent on the previous year at 3.22 million, while the value traded increased 21 per cent to £63.2 billion.

Contributing to the SETS numbers, trading on SETSmm amounted to £2.73 billion, with a record 291,171 trades. August trading on EUROSETS, the Exchange’s new service for Dutch equities amounted to €1.03 billion.

There were 8,213 ETF trades on the London Stock Exchange in August with a total value of £405.1 million, an increase of 131 per cent by value on the same month last year. The value of covered warrants traded during the month was £12.1 million, up 80 per cent on August last year.

On the primary market there were nineteen IPOs, of which two were on the main market. With seventeen IPOs, including two from international companies, AIM attracted more than twice as many new companies in August 2004 as during the same month last year. AIM IPOs in August raised £90.57m, bringing the total for the year to date to £1,566.4 million. The number of companies on AIM reached 900 on 13th August, and by the end of the month there were 917 AIM companies.

There were 21 business days in August 2004, compared with 20 in August 2003.