Lloyds shares fall out of favour at TD Waterhouse
12 March 2010 / by Andy Davies
Banking shares at TD Waterhouse remain the most the popular sector with investors despite interest cooling in Lloyds shares in the past week.
The share dealing house has revealed that banking shares have continued to dominate trading activity with Royal Bank of Scotland leapfrogging Lloyds Banking Group to become the top buy of the week, while Lloyds’ shares also slipped to second place in the top sells as Barclays jumped two places to hit the top spot.
Commenting, Angus Rigby, chief executive officer at TD Waterhouse said: “Sells continued to exceed buys by 27 per cent this week, led by Barclays following news that it is on the lookout for a US retail bank to buy. The banking giant hit the top spot in the sells table, accounting for a quarter (25 per cent) of this week’s top ten sell trades – up 62 per cent from last week.”
However, despite the top three positions in both the best buys and sells being occupied by banking shares, overall interest in the banking sector has cooled as Mr Rigby explains:
“The banking sector loosened its grip on this week’s top ten – slipping to 53 per cent, compared to 64 per cent last week – as the mining/energy and insurance sectors muscled in with 32 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.”
As the highest climber last week, Prudential shares have continued to prove popular with investors climbing one place to third in the top buys, while insurance provider Aviva saw its shares rise three places to fourth. In addition, Aviva shares also entered the top sells, creeping into tenth place after reporting better-than-expected profits for 2009.
“The announcement came as analysts called for disgruntled Prudential shareholders to consider switching to Aviva. Buy trades were 91 per cent higher than sells as Aviva shares started the week relatively low before gradually gaining by 2.90p over the past week,” Mr Rigby added.
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