Trading activity on PLUS rounded off the year strongly in December with 207,113 bargains worth 1.8 billion, impressive considering its new trading platform only went live at the start of November and trading value for the whole of 2007 was up 150% compared to 2006.
The average daily number of bargains during December was 10,901and has continued to rise in January 2008, hitting a daily peak of over 20,000. On the basis of these figures, PLUS is now the third largest stock exchange in Europe, by negotiated trades.
During December 2007, one-third of all daily UK retail trading activity took place on PLUS. The heaviest traded stocks on PLUS were those in the banking sector, including Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Northern Rock. PLUS also continued to attract some 40% of trades in those AIM stocks dual-trading on its market.
During December, the range of securities available for trading on the PLUS market extended further, from full coverage of all London-listed shares to include European liquid stocks as defined by MiFID. This took the total number of securities available for trading on PLUS to over 7,500.
The Company announced a number of significant milestones during 2007 including becoming an independent Recognised Investment Exchange in July 2007 and the successful launch of its new, enhanced trading platform in November, to co-incide with the implementation of MiFID.
“We were pleased to see such a strong finish to 2007 and look forward to building our market share further in 2008. We offer our customers a high-quality execution and listing venue, providing full pre- and post trade transparency under MiFID and all the requisite supporting services. We will continue to provide the most cost effective trading venue in London and pursue our ambition to become the deepest pool of small and mid-cap liquidity in Europe, ” says Cyril Theret, Business Development Director, PLUS.