Press releases 2006

8 March 2006

TRADING ON SETS HITS NEW RECORD IN FEBRUARY

Trading on SETS, the London Stock Exchange's electronic order book, continued to show very strong growth during February 2006, reaching new record levels. The average daily value traded on SETS was up 43 per cent on February 2005 to £5.8 billion and the average daily number of trades was up 35 per cent to 266,577 – both new records.

February accounted for nine of the twenty busiest trading days ever on SETS. 28 February exceeded the previous record for the highest number of SETS trades in a single day by over 10,000 with a total of 332,980 trades. Eighteen of the twenty busiest trading days have occurred since the sucessful implementation of two stages in the delivery of the Exchange's Technology Roadmap; the introduction of Infolect in September and the October trading capacity upgrade. These two developments facilitate high-velocity trading by member firms.

The total number of trades on SETS during February was 5.3 million with a total value traded of £116.4 billion. The average size of a SETS trade increased five per cent on February 2005 to £21,830. Included in the SETS figures, February was also a record month for SETSmm, with the average daily value traded reaching over £400 million for the first time. The average daily number of trades on SETSmm during February was 48,925.

Trading across the Exchange showed strong increases with a total of 8.2 million trades during the month, up 33 per cent on February last year. The value traded was £561.3 billion, also up 33 per cent.

Trading in ETFs rose strongly, up 147 per cent on February 2005. The total value traded during the month reached £1.2 billion, an increase of 137 per cent by value on February last year. The number of covered warrants trades during the month was up 53 per cent on February last year, and the value traded was up 109 per cent to £28.7 million.

February was also a very good month on the primary markets, with a total of 29 IPOs of which 8 were international. There were seven IPOs on the Main Market, raising £2.7 billion between them and 22 IPOs on AIM, raising £284 million.

RNS, the Exchange's service for the dissemination of company news, transmitted a total of 13,151 announcements during the month, an increase of 22 per cent on February 2005. This included 4,659 news and results announcements, representing an increase of 13 per cent on 2005 and an 87 per cent share of all news and results announcements made.

There were 20 trading days during February 2006, the same number as in February 2005.

For further information, please contact:

Catherine Mattison Press Office +44 (0)20 7797 1222 newsroom@londonstockexchange.com