April 1, 2013

Index Up, Volume Down

By Editorial Staff

The Dow Jones Industrial Average may be up 1,343.15, or 10.2 percent, for the year and at an all-time record.

But overall trading in equities is down.

Average daily volume on all equities trading exchanges, venues and systems in February was 6.6 billion shares, according to Nasdaq OMX Group. That is down 5.3 percent 6.9 billion in both January and February of 2012.

Volume did gain 2.3 percent from the 6.4 billion shares traded on an average day in the first month of this year, according to Nasdaq.

The Nasdaq Stock Market had the greatest share of overall trading, at 15.8 percent of all matched volume, according to BATS Global Markets statistics. The New York Stock Exchange and its all-electronic relative NYSE Arca had 11.0 percent and 10.9 percent, respectively.

BATS' handled 727 million shares per day in February; Direct Edge handled 789 million shares.

The one-time American Stock Exchange, now NYSE MKT, had the smallest share of any exchange. It accounted for three-tenths of a percent of all matched volume.

(c) 2013 Traders Magazine and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.tradersmagazine.com http://www.sourcemedia.com/