A tumbleweed blows across Colorado Highway 141 near Naturita.
Anyone who hoped trading volumes would soar come September must realize by now that any recovery, should one materialize, will take time to build.
New numbers from TMX Group show that even though trading volumes on the Toronto Stock Exchange popped 20 per cent in September, relative to August, they are still well below 2011 levels. It's the same story for the Venture Exchange, as well as Alpha, which TMX Group now owns.
In September, the TSX saw volumes totalling $97-billion, while the Venture Exchange had volumes amounting to $1.8-billion. The year prior, the TSX monthly total was $131-billion, while the Venture's was $2.4-billion.
To please yourself, you might argue that 2011 was a bit of an aberration. Year-to-date totals for the TSX, as of Sept. 30, were up about 12 per cent over 2010. Yet this year's totals are even below the 2010 levels.
From January through September this year, the TSX saw trading volumes total $919-billion, while the Venture's added to $19-billion. In 2010, the TSX total for the same period was $1.02-trillion and the Venture's was $21-billion.
Moral of the story: lower volumes mixed with today's tighter spreads are still causing problems.
Tim Kiladze