This week the major stock market indexes have traded some of the lightest volume of the year. On Monday, the highly popular SPDR S&P 500 Trust(NYSE:SPY) traded just 119 million shares. Mondays are a notoriously light trading volume session. Usually the volume will pick up going into the rest of the week. However, the volume has not picked up at all this week. In fact, on Tuesday the volume on the SPY was just 98.4 million shares. That is a significant decline in volume from Monday which tell us that there are very few participants trading this week. Wednesday's trading volume was even lighter than Tuesday ending at just 78.8 million shares. Therefore, today's trading volume could be extremely light and the markets will remain sideways to slightly higher into the close.
This week the Federal Reserve Bank completed double POMO injections on Monday and Tuesday. This is the first time since the Fed's quantitative easing program began that the central bank pulled off two POMO injections on a single trading day back to back as they did on Monday and Tuesday. It seems that the Fed did not want anything to spoil the Santa Claus rally this year. It is important to note that yesterday the Federal Reserve Bank only completed one POMO operation. Therefore, it seems that the early part of the week was more important for them to keep the markets up. I suspect their fear in the market is mostly due to the problems in the European Union.
The Currencyshares Euro Trust(NYSE:FXE) is nearing low levels again and this could cause the U.S. Dollar Index to spike higher. We should all know by know that the major stock markets around the world have been climbing higher or inflating as the U.S. Dollar Index has declined. When the Federal Reserve Banks buys U.S. Treasuries everyday it will cause cash reserves to be built up. This is very inflationary. This is the central banks theory or plan to fight deflation. However, if interest rates rise and the U.S. Dollar Index rises this could mean there are problems on the horizon for the markets. However, at this time everything seems to be jolly and under control. Expect a flat to slightly higher trading day into the holiday.