Top Ten Buys and Sells - UK Equities

Top Ten Buys and Sells - Weekly Retail Investor Activity Summary and Comment

The Top Ten Buys and Sells should not be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell any particular bond or stock, and it is not intended to offer any form of advice. Instead it is simply an indication of the general buying and selling trends amongst some TD customers, observed during the period stated.

Stuart Welch, CEO, TD Direct Investing comments:

“TD customer buy trades were up by a massive 163% in the week ending Tuesday 17 January, with the retail, financial and resource sectors all heavily represented across our most popular trades tables. The buy:sell ratio among TD customers was almost 2:1 in a strong week of trading, with sell trades also increasing - by 50% - as the FTSE 100 finished just three points shy of the previous week’s level at 5,693.95 points.

“Tesco (TSCO) accounted for 50% of the top ten buys, rising from 10th to first in the table as its share price lost nearly 20% this week after a series of setbacks. Our customers appeared to be looking for a bargain, after Tesco announced last Thursday (12 January) that it had suffered its worst Christmas in decades and issued a shock warning that UK profits could fall in the coming year. The supermarket giant also made an appearance in this week’s sells table, taking ninth position.

“Retail commentators suggested that Tesco’s underperformance was in part down to its customers heading down other supermarkets’ aisles over the festive period and one of Tesco’s competitors, J. Sainsbury (SBRY), was a new entry to the top ten buys in sixth place. Despite reporting a strong Christmas period, Sainsbury’s share price lost nearly 7% on the back of Tesco’s announcements, as the latter’s news case doubt on the robustness of the UK’s food retail sector.

“Besides Sainsbury’s, oil and gas explorer Red Emperor Resources (RMP) was the only other new entry in this week’s customer buys table, taking ninth place after confirming, along with third placed Range Resources (RRL), that drilling had begun on the first exploration well to be drilled in Puntland in Somalia for twenty years.

“In the sells table, Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) led the way, leap frogging fellow banking giants Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) and Barclays (BARC), who remained in second and third places, respectively. The three banks combined to make up nearly 55% of our customer’s top ten sells in total, while accounting for just 13.5% of the top ten buys. Barclays slipped to eighth place in the buys from last week’s fourth place, while Lloyds dropped one place to fourth and RBS gained two places, finishing the week as the fifth most popular buy.

“Taylor Wimpey (TW.) rounded off the top ten sells table this week as the 10th most popular sell. The UK’s second-largest house builder by volume said on Tuesday (17 January) that it was expecting an 80% rise in operating profits after hitting its margin targets earlier than scheduled.”

TD’s Global Investor Confidence Study
With ongoing Eurozone issues and worldwide market volatility affecting investors globally, TD Direct Investing is embarking on its biggest ever survey into investor confidence. The Global Investor Confidence Study will gauge how these events are affecting retail and expat investors across the globe. To participate in the survey please click here: www.investorconfidencesurvey.com.

TD has been indexing investor confidence for the past six years, and findings from previous surveys have been mapped out at http://www.investorconfidencesurvey.com/infographic/ giving an indication of how investor confidence in the UK stock market has evolved and fluctuated over the years.