Friday was the busiest trading day in history for NYSE Euronext (NYX) as the operator of the Big Board saw 3.2 billion shares change hands, officials reported late in the day.

Heavy trade was driven by the quarterly rebalancing of the Standard & Poor's 500 index, along with record trade in shares of Citigroup Inc. (C) and the expiration of options and stock futures.

The previous single-day volume record at NYSE Euronext occurred when 3 billion shares were traded on Sept. 19, 2008, days after the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Bros. touched off the global financial crisis.

NYSE Euronext spokesman Ray Pellecchia said Friday's unusually large order flow was executed "extremely smoothly."

Citigroup, one of a number of cheaply priced financial names that has helped fuel intense trade in recent months, registered its own volume record at NYSE Euronext with 874 million shares traded.

Activity at NYSE Euronext's exchange platforms also benefitted from a surge in trade around expiring options and futures positions, known in industry parlance as "quadruple witching," alongside the quarterly rebalancing of the S&P 500 that took place after Friday's close.

The rebalancing of indexes like the S&P 500 tends to spur increased trading and volatility as holdings are adjusted for the coming quarter.

Other intensely traded names at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday included Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and drug company Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY), which attracted investor activity to a stock-swap offer related to its spinoff of Mead Johnson Nutrition Co (MJN).

-By Jacob Bunge, Dow Jones Newswires; (312) 750 4117; jacob.bunge@dowjones.com
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