Stock mania has gripped the US throughout the year. And now it’s spreading to Asia, where trading volumes are rising far faster than even in the US:

The value of stock trades matched on exchanges, in what is known as electronic order-book trading, gives a sense of the trend. Such trading on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges more than doubled in January from a year earlier, to $1.37 trillion and $517 billion respectively, World Federation of Exchanges data shows. In South Korea, it more than tripled to $709 billion.

For comparison, similar trading for Nasdaq Inc. in the U.S. stood at $2.2 trillion, up 54% from a year earlier, while for Germany’s Deutsche Boerse AG and the London Stock Exchange Group PLC the equivalent figures were $178 billion and $148 billion.

I would expect to see higher volatility in some Asian stocks given this trend. This would mirror the increase in volatility in the US this year that we saw during big run-ups in meme stocks in late January and late February, as seen in the VIX index:

For more on Wallstreetbets, check out these posts:

• Congress Is Investigating Wallstreetbets Over GameStop, But the Law’s On Their Side
• Short Sellers Lost Almost $1 Billion on Rocket Companies Yesterday
• There Could Be Another GameStop Short Squeeze, But Beware Weak Fundamentals

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