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During the month there were 3.63 million trades on SETS - up 27 per cent on March 2003 and the highest number of SETS trades in a single month. The value of these trades was £83.3 billion, a 39 per cent increase from the £59.7 billion traded in March last year. Included in these figures were 253,078 SETSmm trades worth £3.36 billion. The average daily number of trades on SETS rose to 158,006, up from 136,440 in March 2003.
In total there were 6.24 million equity trades in March 2004, an increase of 30 per cent on March 2003 and the highest number of trades in a single month. The total value of these trades was £453.1 billion, an increase of 66 per cent on March 2003. The average daily number of trades in March 2004 reached 271,197, an increase of 19 per cent on March 2003. The average daily value of shares traded in March 2004 was £19.7 billion, up 51 per cent from March 2003.
UK equities accounted for 5.1 million trades in March 2004, an increase of 31 per cent on the total of 3.88 million equity trades in March 2003. The total value of UK equities traded in the first three months of 2004 was £647.4 billion, up from £418.2 billion for the same period in 2003.
Trading in covered warrants and ETFs also showed year on year gains. In March 2004, there were 9,047 ETF and 4,882 Covered Warrant trades compared to last March's totals of 6,005 and 2,708 trades respectively.
On the primary market, there were 39 new issues in March raising £750.92 million between them. Five of these were on the Main Market (four of which were equity IPOs) and 34 on AIM (27 of which were IPOs). This compares with 8 new issues (all on AIM) in March 2003.
There were 23 business days in March 2004, compared with 21 in March 2003.
