For those who are interested or concerned about the ever-lower market stock market volume, here's an interesting observation from UBS floor guy Art Cashin.

Apparently yesterday was weird and low volume even by the latest standards.

-------

Monday’s comatose action. We projected that final volume might be 100 million shares better than Monday. When the closing bell finally finished ringing, it was only 50 million more than Monday.

“So what,” you say. “No big deal.” That’s probably right but when you study the tape daily for decades, you wonder - what changed?

Tuesday’s anomaly was caused by two somewhat unusual things. The first was a slight slowing of the trading rate between 2:00 and 3:00. The run rate between those two hours is normally very consistent. Any changes are almost always the result of some news event. Yesterday, there was no news that we could find. A bit strange.

The other anomaly was not quite as rare. It was simply a disinterest in market on close orders. The normal runoff in those orders averages 100 to 150 million shares. Yesterday, it was barely 50 million. Trading geeks (like yours truly) follow such things.

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• At The Last Moment Greece Seems To Have Canceled Its Own Deadline For Austerity Negotiations
• Raymond James Pulls The Plug On The Great 'Hope Trade' Of 2012
• CHART OF THE DAY: A Major Shift In The Stock Market That Everyone Is Cheering About