The number of trades on SETS, the London Stock Exchange's electronic order book, increased 50 per cent in December 2002 to 1.97 million trades compared with 1.32 million in December 2001. However, the average daily value traded on SETS decreased by six per cent to £2.01 billion in 2002, from £2.15 billion in December 2001. For the year as a whole there were 23.84 million SETS trades, which represented a 51 per cent increase on 2001.
The total number of UK and international trades on the Exchange in December 2002 rose four per cent to 3.81 million up from 3.66 million in December 2001. The value of UK & international trades over this period declined 23 per cent. Over the course of 2002 as a whole, there were 52.67 million UK and international trades, which represented a six per cent increase on the 49.59 million trades in 2001.
On the primary market there were 17 new issues during December 2002, 7 of which were IPOs, 2 on the Main Market and 5 on AIM raising £170 million between them. This compares with 26 IPOs in December 2001 - 9 on the Main Market, 17 on AIM, together raising £475.48 million.
