Average daily volume in listed stocks dropped by about 3 percent last month as compared to August 2012.
Over the same time frame, however, share volume in exchange-traded funds jumped by about 20 percent.
The data comes from a recent report from NYSE Euronext.
Average daily volume in stocks was about 4.4 billion shares last month. That was a 3 percent drop from 4.6 billion in August 2012.
For ETFs, 944 million shares traded every day, on average, last month. That was a 20 percent increase from 788 million shares in August 2012.
For the year, stock volume is down by about 5 percent while ETF volume is down about 1 percent, according to NYSE data.
