London Stock Echange | Newsroom | Press release

07 April 2009

ETR – 18

Trading activity on London Stock Exchange Group up on last three months

£156.9 billion (€168.5 billion) worth of equity trading was carried out across the equity order books of the London Stock Exchange Group during March. This was an increase of 32 per cent on the total value traded during February, and the highest total for a single month’s trading since October last year, though down by 38 per cent on the same month last year. The total number of trades also exceeded recent months, though at 23.4 million was down by 11 per cent on March 2008.

The average daily value traded across the London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana equity markets was £7.1 billion (€7.7 billion). This was higher than the average for the previous three months, and an increase of 20 per cent on February, but down by 46 per cent on March last year, reflecting year-on-year declines of 34 per cent and 51 per cent in the average value of the FTSE 100 and MIB indices respectively. The average daily number of trades across the two markets was 1.1 million, up 21 per cent compared with February’s levels, but down five per cent year-on-year.

UK Order Book

A total of 16.4 million equity trades were carried out on the UK order book during March 2009, an increase of 13 per cent on March last year. The total value traded was £105.5 billion (€113.3 billion) a decrease of 36 per cent year-on-year. The average daily value traded was at its highest level since November at £4.8 billion (€5.1 billion). This was up by 19 per cent compared with February, but down by 45 per cent year-on-year.

Italian Order Book

On the Italian order book, the total number of trades was 5.9 million, an increase of three per cent on the same month last year and the highest number of trades in a single month since October. €44.4 billion (£41.3 billion) worth of Italian equity was traded on the order book during the month, the highest total for a single month since November, though a decrease of 50 per cent on March 2008. The average daily number of trades was up by 27 per cent on February at 269,141, but down 12 per cent compared with the previous March.

International Order Book

The total number of trades across the Group’s international order books during March was 1.0 million, up 31 per cent year-on-year. The total value traded was £10.1 billion (€10.8 billion), down by 35 per cent compared with the previous March. The average daily number of trades in international equities was up 13 per cent year-on-year to 47,347 and the average daily value traded was £458.9 million (€493.1 million) a decrease of 44 per cent year-on-year, but an increase of 36 per cent on February’s levels.

ETFs and ETCs

March was a record month for trading in ETFs and ETCs across the two exchanges’ order books. Both the total number of trades in ETFs and ETCs and the total value traded were records, with 251,819 trades – an increase of 64 per cent on March last year – worth a combined total of £7.7 billion (€8.3 billion). The average daily number of trades rose by 42 per cent year-on-year to 11,446, and the average daily value traded rose 26 per cent to £351.4 million (€377.5 million), both records.

Derivatives

The total number of contracts traded across EDX London and IDEM during the month increased by 39 per cent year-on-year to 10.0 million, and the average daily number of contracts traded increased by 20 per cent to 455,750, the second highest levels ever. The average notional value traded each day was down by 49 per cent compared with last March to £3.9 billion (€4.0 billion), while the total notional value traded was down by 41 per cent to £86.2 billion (€88.2 billion).

- ends -

For further information, please contact:

Catherine Mattison +44 (0)20 7797 1222

Luca Grassis +39 02 72426211

Additional Information:

This release uses only electronic trading data; trades that are reported to the either London Stock Exchange or Borsa Italiana under their rules but executed away from their electronic order books are not included.

There were 22 trading days on the London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana during March 2009, compared with 19 the previous year.

During March, the average daily number of trades on SETS – covering all equity based order book trading on the London Stock Exchange was 781,304, down two per cent on

March 2008. The average daily value traded was £5.3 billion, a decrease of 44 per cent compared with March 2008.

Primary market data for March will be available on the websites of London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana later in the month.

The March 2009 value traded figures use a € per £ exchange rate of 1.0743. The exchange rate used for March 2008 was 1.2565.

2009 London Stock Exchange plc. All rights reserved

Recession End | On the Horizon

Sector summary

Sector	Change
Basic Materials	+2.01%
Capital Goods	+2.96%
Conglomerates	+2.58%
Cons. Cyclical	+3.34%
Cons. Non-Cyclical	+1.34%
Energy	+2.16%
Financial	+3.16%
Healthcare	+1.56%
Services	+2.80%
Technology	+3.08%
Transportation	+3.37%
Utilities	+2.37%

Survey: Most economists see recession end in '09

By JEANNINE AVERSA – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 90 percent of economists predict the recession will end this year, although the recovery is likely to be bumpy.

That assessment came from leading forecasters in a survey by the National Association for Business Economics to be released Wednesday. It is generally in line with the outlook from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues.

About 74 percent of the forecasters expect the recession — which started in December 2007 and is the longest since World War II — to end in the third quarter. Another 19 percent predict the turning point will come in the final three months of this year, and the remaining 7 percent believe the recession will end in the first quarter of 2010.

"While the overall tone remains soft, there are emerging signs that the economy is stabilizing," said NABE president Chris Varvares, head of Macroeconomic Advisers. "The economic recovery is likely to be considerably more moderate than those typically experienced following steep declines."

One of the major forces that plunged the economy into a recession was the financial crisis that struck with force last fall and was the worst since the 1930s. Economists say recoveries after financial crises tend to be slower.

Against that backdrop, unemployment will climb this year even if the economy is rebounding, the NABE forecasters predict. Companies won't be in a rush to hire until they feel certain any recovery is firmly rooted.

For all of this year, the forecasters said the unemployment rate should average 9.1 percent, a big jump from 5.8 percent last year and up from its current quarter-century peak of 8.9 percent. If NABE forecasters are right, it would be the highest since a 9.6 percent rate in 1983, when the country was struggling to recover from a severe recession.

Some forecasters thought the unemployment rate could rise as high as 10.7 percent in the second quarter of next year. The NABE outlook from 45 economists was conducted April 27 through May 11.

General Motors Corp., chemical company DuPont and Clear Channel Communications Inc. were among the companies announcing mass layoffs during the survey period.

With joblessness rising, consumers — major shapers of overall economic activity — likely will stay cautious, making for a tepid turnaround. And given the big bite the recession has taken out of household wealth, notably the values of homes and investment portfolios, consumers probably will stay subdued for some time.

Seventy-one percent of the forecasters believe a more-thrifty consumer will be around for at least the next five years. Americans' personal savings rate edged up to 4.2 percent in March, marking the first time in a decade that the savings rate has been above 4 percent for three straight months.

Even as the NABE forecasters believe the country will emerge from recession later this year, they also predict the economy's overall performance in 2009 will be rotten.

The economy should contract by 2.8 percent this year, the forecasters said in updated projections. That's worse than the 1.9 percent drop they forecast in late February. If they are right, it would mark the worst annual contraction since 1946, when economic activity fell by 11 percent.

Still, the forecasters believe the worst is already behind the country in terms of lost economic activity.

The economy shrank at a 6.1 percent annualized pace in the first three months of this year, on top of a 6.3 percent decline in the final three months of last year, the worst six-month performance in 50 years.

For the current April-June quarter, the NABE forecasters believe the economy will shrink at a pace of 1.8 percent. After that, the economy should start growing again — at a 0.7 percent pace in the third quarter and a 1.8 percent pace in the fourth quarter.

NABE's growth projections for the third and fourth quarters are lower than those made in late February. The downgrade was based on the expectation that businesses, whose profits and sales were hit hard by the recession, will remain wary of ramping up investment.

President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package of increased government spending and tax cuts, near-zero interest rates ordered by the Fed and government programs to get banks to lend more freely again all factor into the expected economic revival.

Many forecasters also predict that home sales will hit bottom by the middle of this year, another stabilizing factor for the economy. A report on sales of previously owned homes will be released Wednesday, and data on new-home sales is due Thursday.

Next year, the economy should grow by 2 percent, the forecasters said. That was lower than the 2.4 percent growth projected in February.

With a lethargic recovery expected, forecasters predict the Fed won't start boosting interest rates until the second quarter of next year.

Because Fed policymakers expect credit and financial problems to ebb slowly, "the pace of the recovery would continue to be damped in 2010," they said last week.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Related articles

• Recession to end in 2nd half
  Straits Times - 1 hour ago
• US Recession May End Next Quarter, Business Economists Say
  Bloomberg - 1 hour ago
• Economists Cut US Forecasts Despite Positive Signs - NABE
  Wall Street Journal - 2 hours ago

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On 6 April 2009 ASX announced (PDF 31KB) that it will introduce a market rule requiring brokers to alert retail clients of the need to inform themselves of the rights and obligations associated with trading partly paid securities. The rule is expected to take effect from 1 May 2009. More information (PDF 106KB).

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ASX Trading Participants must report their daily gross short sales (PDF 31KB) to ASX and ASX makes available a daily gross short sale report (TXT 23KB).

An ASX market circular (PDF 72KB) details the requirements for disclosure and reporting of short sales.

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