Banking fever continues to grip the nation as reporting season gets into full swing. 

TD Waterhouse has seen strong trading activity in the financial services sector among its customer base with UK banking stocks accounting for three-quarters of all trades during the week.
 
Angus Rigby, chief executive officer of TD Waterhouse, said: “On Tuesday, Barclays’ delivered a resilient performance when it stepped up to announce its 2007 results. Despite a 1% fall in profits the bank reported lower than expected write-downs and will be increasing its dividend by 10%.

“In recent weeks, banking shares have withered with reports of capital concerns but this week we have seen some much-needed optimism injected back into the sector as Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS saw shares rally on the back of Tuesday’s results.” 

However, Alliance and Leicester put a spanner in the works by reporting a 30% fall in annual profits attributed to market volatility and forecasting a difficult year ahead. On the back of this, their share price traded between 428p to 499½p during the day and TD Waterhouse customers reacted accordingly with the buy to sell ratio in Alliance & Leicester approximately 3:1.