Excited trading resulting from Barack Obama’s banking reform proposals, pushed banking stocks to the top positions on yesterday’s trading lists.

Barclays led the way, accounting for 10.8 per cent of the overall buys and 5 per cent of overall sales. It was closely followed by Lloyds Banking Group, which represented 8.4 per cent of Barclays Stockbrokers’ online purchases and 4.5 per cent of the overall sales. Royal Bank of Scotland was third on the sales list at 3.3 per cent.

Nick Serff, market analyst at City Index, said that, in addition to the Obama reforms, banks have suffered from weaker than expected earnings from Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America with investors largely shrugging off Goldman Sachs’ positive results.

He added, ‘Investors have continued to sell equities on Thursday with prices looking to correct themselves after the recent rally that took the major indices to new 15 month highs.

‘A correction has been a bit overdue now, considering how far we have come without any major sell off. It seems that it has been a mixture of bleak earnings and concerns over Chinese growth that has triggered investors into taking positions off the table.’

Mining stocks Xstrata, Kazakhmys and Rio Tinto continued to be subject to heavy trading. Xstrata accounted for 2.2 per cent of all sales and 5.5 per cent of all purchases.

United Utilities, meanwhile, that had been second in the morning’s sell list dropped down to fifth in the full day statistics at 2 per cent.

BARCLAYS STOCKBROKERS
Top ten trades
Thursday 21 January 2010

BUY
1. Barclays, 10.8 per cent
2. Lloyds Banking Group, 8.4 per cent
3. Xstrata, 5.5 per cent
4. RBS, 3.6 per cent
5. Rio Tinto, 2.3 per cent
6. Kazakhyms, 1.9 per cent
7. Anglo American, 1.5 per cent
8. Standard Chartered Bank, 1.4 per cent
9. Vialogy, 1.3 per cent
10. Inchcape, 1 per cent

SELL
1. Barclays, 5 per cent
2. Lloyds Banking Group, 4.5 per cent
3. RBS, 3.3 per cent
4. Xstrata, 2.2 per cent
5.United Utilities, 2 per cent
6. Rio Tinto, 1.9 per cent
7. Vialogy, 1.6 per cent
8. Taylor Wimpey, 1.5 per cent
9. Matra Petroleum, 1.5 per cent
10. Enterprise Inns, 1.2 per cent