The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has had a rather flat day of trading this Wednesday. By today's market close, the ASX 200 had slid 0.12% to 7,502.1 points.
With such an uninteresting move for the index today, let's instead dive into some of the ASX 200 shares that are experiencing the heaviest trading volumes and see what we can find.
3 ASX 200 shares that topped trading volumes on Wednesday
Scentre Group (ASX: SCG)
ASX real estate investment trust (REIT) Scentre Group is our first ASX 200 share to check out today. This Wednesday has seen a healthy 22.4 million Scentre units swap hands. There's no real news, announcements or other catalysts we can point to today to explain this move.
However, the Scentre unit price surged a little in afternoon trade. The Scentre share price closed the day up 1.19% to $2.56 a unit. It might be this positive move (in defiance of the ASX 200 too) that sparked a high volume of trading with this company today.
BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP)
The 'Big Australian' makes the list today with a solid 25.7 million BHP shares changing hands. A top ASX 200 miner, BHP has seen a sharp reaction to the release of its FY21 earnings report after market close yesterday evening.
BHP shares fell sharply on open this morning, and closed the day down a substantial 7.07% to $47.70 at the time of writing. It's almost certainly this large share price slide that is behind the high volume of BHP shares traded today. Especially considering BHP's sheer size, as well as the magnitude of today's share price drop.
Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS)
ASX 200 lithium producer Pilbara, which regularly appears on this list, came in at the top today, with a hefty 38.7 million shares changing hands. Again, there is no real news or developments we can point to here.
But the Pilbara share price has come under a lot of pressure over the past week or so, having lost around 13% since last Wednesday. It has also dropped a nasty 3.18% just today, which is probably the reason why we saw an elevated trading volume.
