In November 2008, PLUS posted 524,919 bargains of 2.745 billion shares, valued at £ 3.035 billion. This represents an increase of 154% in trades, 88% in trade value and 189% in number of shares against November last year, when the new PLUS trading platform was launched.

November proved to be a very strong month with PLUS also securing the majority of UK retail trading with a 53% market share against the LSE's number of retail trades.* In addition, PLUS continues to maintain its leading position in UK small and mid-cap shares, trading more than half the trades in 766 stocks (October 2008: 763), comprising over 500 Official List Fledgling and Small Cap stocks, some AIM securities dual-trading on PLUS and PLUS-quoted securities. This continues to increase monthon- month as PLUS cements its commanding market position in the small and mid-caps.

Furthermore, PLUS's penetration in the large-caps is also consistently gaining ground, with November recording over 18%** market share by trade value in HBOS for the month. Other trading highs for the month include:

On-exchange trades (November 2008)**

Name                                  Market Share % in Value (November 2008)
HBOS                                  18.43%
STANDARD LIFE                    15.13%
LLOYDS TSB                        12.56%
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND    11.20%

PLUS continues to make in-roads in market share across all sectors. Notably, in the Thomson Reuters MiFID market share report for October, PLUS ranked 3rd by volume (shares) with 3.31% of onexchange trading in all UK and Irish equities.***

"A year on from MiFID, we're pleased to see PLUS enjoying traction and momentum with order flow attracted to PLUS across all market sectors, We look forward to extending our trading offerings to customers shortly with our "PLUS-pool" dark pool for small and mid-caps and our "PLUS-HQ" hittable quote for liquid securities board," said Business Development Director Cyril Theret.

* Market share derived from data taken from the LSE website - represents 17 out of 20 trading days in November
** Taking into account LSE numbers only
*** Excluding Markit Boat, which is off-exchange OTC trade reporting