The LSE's covered warrants exchange is lagging far behind its competitors in continental Europe, with the average number of daily trades failing to hit 150, compared with daily trading volumes in excess of 10,000 in Germany and Italy.

The LSE's covered warrants, which launched in October last year, attracted just 2,878 trades last month. Although the volume was a record for the LSE, exceeding its previous high in March this year, the total value of the trades was just £7.8m (€11.4m). So far 448 warrants have been listed on the exchange, meaning that each warrant would have attracted on average a meagre six trades during the month.