CAZENOVE AND UBS WARBURG STILL AHEAD ON CLIENT NUMBERS

There have been no very startling changes in this quarter's stockbrokers' results. In the first of the 'size' tables, which lists firms according to their number of stock market clients, Cazenove and UBS Warburg unsurprisingly retain first and second places respectively, the former well ahead of the runner-up. Brewin Dolphin Securities has moved up one to take third place, followed by Teather & Greenwood ­ also up one ­ at number four. Four of the other results are the same as last quarter's.

The first six places are unchanged from the August listings in the second table, which shows firms by clients making the most profit: Cazenove, UBS Warburg, Hoare Govett and HSBC in the top four places all able to demonstrate a client list making healthy aggregate pre-tax profits totalling thousands of millions. Once again Cazenove is comfortably ahead, with a figure of £7,662.4 million compared with UBS Warburg's £4,277.4 million.

Brewin Dolphin Securities has held on to the top position it achieved last quarter in the first of the growth tables, which calculates the average increase in clients' pre-tax profits ­ 6.4% in Brewin Dolphin's case. The only other stockbroking firm whose clients show a positive growth figure in this table is HSBC, at number two. The other figures are all negative, that of Evolution Beeston Gregory's clients, in eleventh place, being down by nearly a fifth at -19.9 per cent. There were some marked divergences from last quarter's positions in this table, with the best increase being that of Teather & Greenwood which shot up from eleventh place last time round to fourth this quarter. Collins Stewart fell four places to number nine, and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is down from sixth to tenth.

The second growth table ranks the firms by the average increase in their clients' earnings per share. Here Brewin Dolphin (number two last quarter), has taken the first place, ousting HSBC from the top position to number two. Apart from these two, no firms' clients show a positive figure. UBS Warburg remains in third place. Here again there have been some significant shifts in the pecking order ­ Teather & Greenwood has made another leap upwards, from number ten to take sixth place, and Old Mutual Securities is also up, from eighth to fourth. Evolution Beeston Gregory is down from fifth to eighth; and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein dropped from fourth to eleventh place.