Thursday, August 16, 2012

Trading Slows in the Dog Days of Summer

Trading has been very light in the past week as beach-bound investors have conveniently left their brokers’ numbers at home. Or perhaps they’ve all been scared off by the high-speed breakdown at Knight Capital Group (KCG) or the slow-speed political breakdown in the euro zone.

Either way, fewer than 3 billion shares traded hands on the NYSE for the fourth straight day on Wednesday, as NYSE composite volume hit 2.64 billion shares (versus the average this year of 3.7 billion). The S&P 500 ended the day 0.11% higher, while the Dow was down 0.06%. Not, perhaps, a ton of conviction there.

If the sub-3-billion volume trend holds tomorrow, it will mark the longest such streak since last December.

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