The amount of Vodafone stock sold into the equity market this year reached a staggering £4.5bn (€7.4bn) on Wednesday when ABN Amro Rothschild executed a £129m block trade in the UK mobile telecoms group's shares.

The shares were sold on behalf of Swedish incumbent operator Telia. Telia sold the stock to ABN on Wednesday morning before trading opened, and the bank then started to sell them into the market. The bank had bought the shares for 161p, just under last night's close of 161.5p, but by mid-afternoon they were down nearly 2% at 158.5p.