Stock Market Has a Black Friday Tradition: Low Trading Volume
- Trading volume is light but higher than in recent history
- Last year’s Black Friday volume was the highest in five years
Trading has been sluggish all week, steadily declining in the days preceding the holiday.
Photographer: Michael Nagle/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The day after the US Thanksgiving holiday is traditionally among the lightest sessions of the year in the stock market, and Friday is no exception with volume on the S&P 500 Index 46% lighter than the average over the last 30 days.
Trading has been sluggish all week, steadily declining in the days preceding the holiday. Only 1.7 billion shares traded on Wednesday. But the shortened session after Thanksgiving is usually particularly light. In 2019, volume was less than one billion shares, a level already eclipsed in this Black Friday session.