Trading activity on PLUS rounded off the year strongly in December with 207,113 bargains worth £1.8 billion. Notwithstanding that its new trading platform only went live at the start of November, trading value for the whole of 2007 was up 150% compared to 2006 and number of bargains increased by 108% in 2007 against the same year.
The average daily number of bargains during December was 10,901 (December 2006: 2,788) and has continued to rise in January, hitting a daily peak of over 20,000. This contrasts credibly with other markets (for example, the average daily number of bargains on AIM during the same month was 14,552). On the basis of these strong figures, PLUS is now the third largest stock exchange in Europe, by negotiated trades.*
During the month of December, one-third of all daily UK retail trading activity took place on PLUS. The heaviest traded stocks on PLUS were those in the banking sector, including Barclays (for which PLUS accounted for 4.6% of trades in the month), Royal Bank of Scotland (4.4%) and Northern Rock (26.7%). PLUS also continued to attract some 40% of trades in those AIM stocks dual-trading on its market.
During December, the range of securities available for trading on the PLUS market extended further, from full coverage of all London-listed shares (including all FTSE 100) to include European liquid stocks as defined by MiFID. This took the total number of securities available for trading on PLUS to over 7,500.
The Company announced a number of significant milestones during 2007 including becoming an independent Recognised Investment Exchange in July and the successful launch of its new, enhanced trading platform in November, to co-incide with the implementation of MiFID. Business Development Director Cyril Théret said: ”We were pleased to see such a strong finish to 2007 and look forward to building our market share further in 2008. We offer our customers a high-quality execution and listing venue, providing full pre- and post trade transparency under MiFID and all the requisite supporting services. We will continue to provide the most cost effective trading venue in London and pursue our ambition to become the deepest pool of small and mid-cap liquidity in Europe.”
*PLUS December no. of trades against Federation of European Securities Exchanges Monthly Statistics, December 2007, Domestic Equity Trading
PLUS Markets is an independent stock exchange in London, with “Recognised Investment Exchange” status, and classed as a Market Operator under MiFID. Its offering includes the full range of stock exchange activities, namely: trading execution, the provision of proprietary market data and listing/quotation destinations.
Month |
Bargains |
Trade
value |
Number
of shares |
September 07 |
52,310 |
£ 353.81 m |
467.32 m |
October 07 |
64,311 |
£ 404.50 m |
537.76 m |
November 07 |
206,442 |
£1,613.69m |
948.43m |
December 07 |
207,113 |
£1,792.22m |
1,020.22m |
(December 06 |
52,969 |
£301.54m |
571.71m |
Total
(2007) |
1,071,641 |
£7,508.17m |
8,278.93m |
Total
(2006) |
513,866 |
£2,997.42m |
5,754.07m |