According to the NY Post report despite a bubbly stock market, few on Wall Street are popping open the champagne.
For while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index yesterday hit a four-year high, trading volume, the life blood of most financial firms, is off sharply in the first eight weeks of 2012 vs. last year — which itself marked one of the slowest years in memory.
In fact, through Feb. 22, trading volume is as anemic as it was in 2007, when the market started to show signs of serious mortgage problems.
January’s average daily volume is off 15 percent from the year-ago period, industry statistics show. February volume, through Wednesday, is off nearly 11 percent, according to research from the Tabb Group.
Activity is not much better in fixed-income trading.Trading in areas like funky derivatives tied to commodities and currencies is seeing volumes down 11.2 percent year-over-year, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Trading in interest-rate derivative products also is off by 25.9 percent.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/cobweb_corner_nq0S4urzgdjOIzXTF4xNpO
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