NYSE Stat Providers 'Disagree' On Friday's Volume

So what was Friday’s NYSE volume? NYSE stat providers can’t get the story straight.

How confusing is this?

Yahoo! Finance
Total NYSE volume: 776,621,271

Well, that can’t be right, if only because the same source pegged volume at The World’s Most Unnecessary Securities Exchange [Amex] at 1.43 billion shares on its lazy-hamster-shortened day. Not to mention the 38:61 Up:Down stat on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average sported a 233 pt, or 1.8 percent, gain.

The Wall Street Journal
Total NYSE volume: 2,467,889,040

Well, that’s closer but it seems a bit light given options expiration and the drama triggered by the Fed cracking the discount window for one of history’s most spectacular short squeezes. (This table also shows Amex turnover at a somewhat more likely, compared with the Yahoo! Finance tally, 39.3 million shares).

New York Stock Exchange
Total NYSE volume: 5,150,350,000

Now, can we believe the horse’s mouth? Remembering of course that this is the same horse that a while back suddenly realized they’d been getting the program trading number wrong for the last 20 years or so.

Reuters
Total NYSE volume: 2,486,589,000. (According to my copy of Excel; being Reuters, you have to do the math yourself).

Screenshots (thanks Dave) over the arbitrage.

Yahoo! Finance
click to enlarge

[At 16:00 EDT Sunday, Yahoo! Finance had knocked the Amex volume down to 1.2 billion shares, while adding about a million to the NYSE total. Go figure.]

The Wall Street Journal

New York Stock Exchange

Reuters
click to enlarge

Comments

[Grey Beard:]

Yahoo's volume numbers are DISPLAYed incorrectly on their A/D page, but if you cut and paste to Excel you find out that the trailing digits are being truncated because some overpaid wit/2 has the page's display characteristics screwed up - in spite of me writing them about it twice in rather shrill tones.

Also, as per new regulations a few years ago, they count both the buy and sell side of trades, so the numbers are twice what they used to be.

Finally, yes, their NYSE volume numbers include the AMEX volumes also, as well as all pre and post market trades. If data sources understood the importance of maintaining the integrity of historical data it would be much more useful in making use of it. Sadly, government statistical series are no better.

I hope this helps.

2008 Sep 30 09:21 PM