A few interesting observations this morning from the Trader Wizard himself, Bill Cara.
Regards - VHF
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Morning Call
Bill Cara
March 17, 2010
[7:58am ET] I know today’s green and we’re all Irish, but what’s going on here? The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has lifted 13 consecutive days in a row, since February 25, seldom seen in the past 20 years. But, why the bullishness when S&P trading volume is down in March –40.4% (at 4.38 billion shares average daily volume) over the average of March 2009 (7.34 billion)? In fact, trading is even drying up this year as the February average daily volume for the S&P was 4.45 billion, and in January it was 4.79 billion.
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=spy
To confirm the disappearance of traders this year, I noted that Ameritrade (AMTD) and Schwab (SCHW) are down –6.05% and –6.29%, respectively, since the close on January 4 (first day of trading in 2010), while the SPY is up +2.71%.
Given that much of the trading today is computer program generated, which may not be down in volume all that much, it appears to me that humans have walked away. If that’s the case, how much trust can we place in the current prices?
