The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has had a record trading year, with trading volumes 22% higher than in 2000, an indication that it is far from being overtaken by alternative trading systems.

Fifty million trades were carried out on the exchange in 2001, with trades executed on Sets, the electronic order book, accounting for £660bn (€1.1 trillion) worth of trading, up 24% from the previous year. The 15.9 million trades executed on Sets in 2001 broke a new record and dwarfed the previous record of 8.6 million set in 2000. Trading on Sets accounted for as much as 63%, and an average of 52%, of the value of trades executed on the exchange in any one month.