The London Stock Exchange made a very strong start to 2007 with record trading activity across its markets. The number of SETS trades increased 61 per cent on January 2006 to 8.7 million, the highest number of trades ever recorded on the electronic order book in a single month, while the value traded rose by 33 per cent to £156.5 billion. The average daily number of trades on SETS in January increased 54 per cent on last January to 397,215, and the average daily value traded rose by 27 per cent to £7.1 billion.



Included in the SETS figures, SETSmm had a particularly strong month, with the total number of trades more than doubling year on year, increasing 106 per cent to a record-breaking two million, equivalent to an average of 91,205 trades per day. The total value traded grew 74 per cent compared with January 2006 to £14.5 billion.

Also included in the SETS figures, the Exchange's International Order Book (IOB) had an excellent month, with a 66 per cent increase in the number of trades compared with January last year to 79,419, and an increase of 61 per cent in the value traded to $12.4 billion.

The total number of UK equity trades increased 50 per cent compared with January 2006 to a record 9.8 million, while the total value of UK equities traded during the month was also a record at £327.0 billion, up 22 per cent on January 2006.

Trading in ETFs continued to grow with the value traded up 104 per cent year on year to £2.4 billion, while the number of trades increased 68 per cent to 34,884.

January was also a good month for EDX London, the London Stock Exchange’s derivatives business. Trading in the new Russian derivatives service reached a total of 46,618 contracts during the month, with a combined value of $468.3 million. Trading in Nordic derivatives was up 26 per cent on January 2006 to a total 2.8 million contracts, the second busiest month on record.

AIM attracted IPOs from nine companies during January, raising a total of £147 million between them, nearly double the amount raised by new AIM IPOs during the same month last year.

RNS, the Exchange's service for the dissemination of company news, transmitted a total of 16,377 company announcements during January, a 20 per cent increase on January last year. Of these 5,288 were news and results announcements, representing 86 per cent of all company news and results announcements issued in the UK.

There were 22 trading days in January 2007, one more than in January 2006.