(Bloomberg) -- Trading volume, even in hot areas such as tech stocks, notoriously dip in the days ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Not this year.
Volume on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index averaged 1.07 billion shares per day through Wednesday -- making it the biggest lead up to Thanksgiving since 2004 and almost double the volume of last year, when about 580 million of shares were traded, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
With travel and other gathering restrictions in place throughout large portions of the U.S., day traders and other self-directed investors might have just turned to the evergreen tech sector to stay occupied ahead of the holiday break, analysts said.
“Retail self-directed investors are back and they are re-engaged again,” said John Christofilos, senior vice-president and chief trading officer at AGF Investments Inc., said by phone. “It went a little bit quiet through the summer and now it looks like they've re-engaged.”
Read more: ‘Very, Very Busy Week' Wipes Out Traders' Usual Holiday Doldrums
U.S. stock markets were closed on Thursday, but futures contracts on the S&P 500 fell 0.3% during holiday-shortened trading hours, while those on the Nasdaq were little changed.
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