London Stock Exchange Monthly Market Report For October 2002 - High Volumes In October During Month Of Heavy Trading Across Exchange

A month of heavy trading on the London Stock Exchange in October 2002 saw a six per cent increase in the average daily number of UK and international trades to 232,181 in the month, up from 218,798 trades in October 2001.

The total number of UK trades increased to 3.81 million in the month, up 21 per cent compared with 3.15 million in October 2001. However, the value of these trades fell by five per cent from £162 billion in October 2001 to £154 billion in 2002.

The rise in market volumes was most notable on SETS, the Exchange's electronic order book, with a 48 per cent increase: a record 2.67 million trades in October 2002 compared with 1.80 million in the corresponding month in 2001. The average daily number of trades on SETS increased from 78,497 trades in October 2001 to 116,144 trades in October 2002.

Meanwhile, on the primary market there were 18 new issues during October 2002, 5 of which were IPOs on AIM, raising £13.04 million (October 2001: 6 IPOs - 1 on the Main Market, 5 on AIM, together raising £80.94 million).