Bombogenesis No Match for Stock Market Optimism as Volume Soars

(Bloomberg) -- While blinding snow shut schools and governments across much of the U.S. Northeast, animal spirits are running high in the red-hot equity market.

True, traders can log in from home buying and selling stocks, and volume always picks up after the holiday season. But Thursday's surge in volume, if sustained through close, would double the average pace of growth at this time of the year.

Busier trading shows investors are rushing to snap up stocks after the S&P 500 rose every day to a record high to start the new year. At 1:04 p.m. in New York, trading in S&P 500 stocks was 24 percent above the 30-day average at this time of day. Since 2008, daily transactions over the first five sessions of a year increased about 9 percent on average from the previous month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at lwang8@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Arie Shapira at ashapira3@bloomberg.net, Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.