Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) stocks remained the most traded by TD Waterhouse customers last week as share dealers saw an opportunity to cash in on the Edinburgh based lenders’ record losses of £24billion.

“TD Waterhouse customers remained persistent buyers again with the number of trades bought almost doubling those sold,” said Angus Rigby, CEO at TD Waterhouse share dealing.

“There is an eclectic mix to this week’s tables although the three positions of our most traded stocks by customers continue to be dominated by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays.

Mr Rigby says that while trades in Barclays were evenly split, which indicates that customers are hoping to capitalise on the bank’s volatile share price through regular, intra-day share dealing, customers were buying far more Lloyds Banking Group and RBS shares than they were selling.

“Trades in Lloyds Banking Group are weighted more towards buys, albeit at a lesser extent than in previous weeks, with a buy/sell ratio of almost 2:1,” he said, “however, the spotlight well and truly falls on RBS.

“Our data includes trading activity up to market close on Tuesday, 24 February and at the time RBS accounted for 23 per cent of our top ten trades.”

Last week, RBS unveiled record losses, and then, the 70 per cent nationalised bank also announced its intention to place £325billion of its toxic debt into the Government’s Asset Protection Scheme (APS), and this had an interesting affect on its share price.

“Although the results looked bad the bank’s share price rallied by around 22% during the day on back of the UK plans,” said Mr Rigby.

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