Year Over Year Volume Decline

One observation I explored last night was the fact that volume is decreasing not only since the March bottom, but on a year over year basis as well. July volume appears likely to come in lower than in 2008. Since the long-term trend of volume has been steadily up I decided to look at other times the market’s monthly volume had declined on a year over year basis. There were 543 months in the test and the average month gained a little over ½%. There have been 125 times where volume has come in lower than the same month the year before. Results following such months were in line with all months as a whole. I also checked to see if it mattered whether the month was positive or negative, or whether it closed at the highest monthly level in 6 months made any difference. Somewhat surprising to me, I was unable to decipher any edge, bullish or bearish, to a year over year decline in volume.