A combination of market volatility, the introduction of TradElect and recent enhancements to the volume discount scheme contributed to a surge in trading volumes on SETS, the London Stock Exchange’s electronic order book, during August. The number of trades on SETS exceeded a million on three separate days during August, helping to take the average daily number of trades to a new high of 688,391, an increase of 141 per cent on August last year. The average daily value traded on SETS was also a record at £9.9 billion, an increase of 96 per cent on August 2006.

The total number of trades on SETS during the month exceeded 15 million, bringing the total number of trades for the calendar year so far to 86.1 million. This is already well in excess of the 78.2 million trades carried out on the order book during the whole of 2006, and takes the year to date growth in the number of SETS trades to 72 per cent.

Trading on SETSmm, which is included in the SETS totals, was particularly noteworthy. Compared with August last year, the total number of trades on SETSmm increased 221 per cent to 4.3 million, and the value traded grew 177 per cent to £26.0 billion. Trading on the International Order Book was also strong, with 112,218 trades during the month, just over double the number carried out on the IOB during August last year. The value traded on the IOB grew 75 per cent year on year to £8.9 billion.

The value traded in ETFs on the Exchange during August increased 268 per cent on the same month last year to £3.8 billion, while the number of trades increased 234 per cent on August last year to 53,343.

There were 22 IPOs on the Exchange’s markets during August, raising a combined total of £1.2 billion, more than three times the total raised during August last year. Of these, two were UK IPOs on the Main Market, raising £84.4 million between them, two were international IPOs on the Main Market, raising a total of £382.4 million, and 18 were on AIM, raising £692.7 million between them.

RNS, the Exchange’s service for the dissemination of company news, issued 18,059 announcements during August. Of these, 38 per cent, or 6,864 were news and results announcements, representing an 87 per cent share of all such announcements made in the UK market.

There were 22 trading days in August 2007, the same number as during August last year.