All banking stocks dropped this afternoon following news that Bank of America had made a £119 million ($194 million) loss in its fourth quarter results.

The announcement sent the FTSE 100 trading down by around 1 per cent from its last close at 5,461, with Barclays, RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC and Standard Chartered all in the red.

Away from Financials though, it was Falkland Oil & Gas and Cadbury that dominated trades, according to this morning’s figures from TD Waterhouse.

James Daly, investor centre representative at the company, said that this morning’s top buy and sell lists had no shortage of stocks that were new to the tables.

He added, ‘Most notably was the sell activity in Falkland Oil & Gas and Cadbury. There is obvious interest in Cadbury at present, following yesterday’s news that Kraft’s takeover bid had received board approval.

'While Falkland hit a new high of 173p last night, it has since fallen back slightly this morning to below 160p.’

Daly said that despite the selectivity in these stocks, overall top ten buys outweighed sells by more than three to one, with Xstrata the most bought stock by TD Waterhouse’s customers.

He explained, ‘Xstrata accounted for 25 per cent of the overall top ten buys, from when markets opened to 12 (noon) today.’

TD Waterhouse
Trading top ten
Wednesday 20 January (morning session)

Buys
1. Xstrata, 25 per cent
2. Lloyds Banking Group, 17 per cent
3. Barclays, 13.5 per cent
4. RBS, 13 per cent
5. Kazakhmys, 6 per cent
6. Rio Tinto, 6 per cent
7. Desire Petroleum, 5.5 per cent
8. Tesco, 5 per cent
9. Vodafone, 5 per cent
10. BHP Billiton, 4.5 per cent

Sells
1. Barclays, 16.5 per cent
2. RBS, 15 per cent
3. Matra Petroleum, 12 per cent
4. Lloyds Banking Group, 10.5 per cent
5. United Utilities Group, 8.5 per cent
6. Desire Petroleum, 8.25 per cent
7. Falkland Oil & Gas, 7.75 per cent
8. Cadbury, 7.25 per cent
9. GlaxoSmithKline, 7.25 per cent
10. British Airways, 7 per cent