The Big Picture - Macro Perspective on the Capital Markets, Economy, Technology, and Digital Media

To quantify the fall off in volume seen over the past week of trading, assuming current trends persist to day’s end, today will be the 4th day in a row of total consolidated NYSE volume below 5b shares for the first time since mid July. I’m not going to give a technical prediction based on this but the drop off in volume is likely due to Q3 earnings season being basically over, the economic calendar quiet this week, a greater focus on risk control (sometimes by doing less) as we are close to finishing up a good year in stock performance, in nominal terms and a general uncertainty about the state of the world with sluggish economic fundamentals on one hand but free money falling from the sky on the other.