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Trading Volume Way Down

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERATrading volume is way down as investors lick their wounds from a brutal tech and healthcare sell-off this Spring. For those of us who don’t participate in heavy trading, it has been a beautiful Spring. It’s fun being able to stay above the fray and collect dividends. And it’s no surprise that hedge funds were in the middle of this latest mess. The WSJ has more on the lower trading volume here :

 

Still, some fast-trading hedge funds have pulled back after suffering big losses in this spring’s collapse of richly valued, young technology stocks. Frenetic trading in those shares boosted volumes in the first four months of 2014, but the swings have since subsided.

Even high-frequency traders are slowing down: Their stock-trading volume declined 3% last year and is down 52% from the 2009 peak, according to an estimate by Rosenblatt Securities Inc.

Some traders also said there has been a chill in hedge-fund trading in the wake of the insider-trading investigations that led to SAC Capital Advisors LP’s decision to convert to a home office, which manages the funds of insiders led by founder Steven A. Cohen. SAC and other fast-trading firms often bought and sold stock in huge volume, especially around earnings reports. A spokesman for the firm, now called Point72 Asset Management, declined to comment.

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.