Investor attention has been focusing on banks as the fallout from the Eurozone crisis continued to wreak havoc with the markets.
The fortunes of Lloyds Banking Group were uppermost in investors’ thoughts in the week ending 8 November, according to TD Waterhouse, with the banking giant being both the most bought and most sold stock of the week.
Almost half the top ten buys were accounted for by Lloyds, with investors seemingly sensing an opportunity.
Having announced losses of £3.8 billion for the first nine months of the year, and seen its chief executive officer be signed off for sick leave, Lloyds saw its shares fall to a low of 27 pence during the week, having closed the previous week at nearly 31 pence.
Meanwhile, other financial heavyweights also caught the eye of investors.
Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland occupied second and third place respectively in both the most bought and most sold charts for the week.
RSA Insurance Group entered the buys table in seventh place after announcing positive interim results for the third quarter of the year.
Investors took the plunge after the company revealed it had written £6.1 billion worth of insurance premiums in the first nine months of 2011, around 11% higher than in the same period in 2010.
At the same time, fellow insurer Aviva retained fifth place in the buys table, and also dropped to ninth place from fourth in terms of being sold.
Also enjoying considerable interest were the oil and gas explorer Afren, the chip-maker ARM Holdings, and the world’s second largest mining company, Rio Tinto.
“Afren was this week’s fourth most popular buy after announcing it had completed the acquisition of oil assets in the Kurdistan region of Iraq for nearly $600 million, using a $200 million loan to help fund the purchase,” explained Darren Hepworth, global trading and product director at TD Waterhouse.
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