Equity traders who had been frustrated by recent sleepy volumes just got a big liquidity boost.
Stock transactions spiked Friday amid a quarterly event colloquially known as quadruple witching, when options and futures on indexes and equities expire. More than 17 billion shares changed hands on exchanges, 20% above the three-month average, as the S&P 500 erased an earlier decline of 0.7% before closing the session with a slight loss.
