Stock Trading Intensity Soars to Record on Rapid Shifts in War
Markets were on edge again Tuesday, after Trump threatened to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” and continued attacks on the country’s main oil export facility, ratcheting up pressure on Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Photographer: Michael Nagle/BloombergInvestors wary of being wrong-footed by twists and turns in the Iran war are trading stocks at a record intensity, one market measure shows.
Wall Street traders have been on edge, hanging on every development in the Middle East and the often unpredictable missives of President Donald Trump. One technical metric, the daily turnover in the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, has breached $60 billion — a reading seen as a “freak out” indicator by Bloomberg Intelligence strategists — 29 times this year. That new record compares to 28 times in all of 2025, according to BI’s Athanasios Psarofagis.