US equity trading volumes have increased by nearly 10% from February to March, coinciding with a 12.84% year to date increase in the S&P 500 Index and signalling US equity markets are in relatively good health.
Volumes increased from US$4.17 billion in February to US$4.5 billion in March. That still represents a decrease versus March last year (US$5.3 billion), but on the other hand the S&P Index is up 6.5% versus a year ago.
The current upward trend in US volumes dates back to December’s US$3.75 billion – which was a low point for the entire 12 months. The market peaked at US$7.29 billion in August last year.
Market share between America’s trading venues was consistent across the period. The largest venue, Nasdaq, held steady at 20%, while BATS BYZ Exchange saw no change at 10%. Both venues also held virtually the same market share 12 months ago (20% and 9%, respectively).
While no venues reported any dramatic increase in market share, the biggest losers were NYSE N and NYSE Arca which lost one percentage point each (from 14% to 13% and from 16% to 15%, respectively).
BATS Global Markets reported its BATS BYX Exchange market experienced its best month on record, with 2.6% market share in March, while BATS’ overall US equity market share remained steady at 10.9%.