[By Larry Goldfarb]

ThinkEquity LLC has decided to terminate its stock trading and research operations effective immediately. The closing was announced this morning by CEO Greg Wright in an interview with Bloomberg, and he cited this year’s stock-trading volume slump as the cause. “This was very sudden and unexpected,” wrote Kimberly Lee, a biotechnology analyst with the firm, in an email to clients. She didn’t respond to requests for additional comment.

ThinkEquity isn’t the first firm to shutter its equity trading business—and the equity research that helps sell it—as a result of the trading-volume slowdown. 

• Auriga USA, a division of Spanish bank Auriga Global Investors Sociedad de Valores SA, closed its equity-trading and research division earlier this year for similar reasons.
• Rodman & Renshaw has mostly wound down its equity trading and research division and has changed its name to Direct Market Holdings Corp, though it still lists equity-research coverage of life sciences and healthcare companies on its website.

Small to midsize firms have begun to hire traders and analysts from these shuttered divisions:

• WallachBeth Capital, usually known for exchange-traded fund trading and execution, brought in a team from Auriga to help bolster its equity-trading book.
• Brean Capital LLC, previously known as Brean Murray Carret, hired an analyst from ThinkEquity as part of an expansion and rebranding, which included the launch of a fixed-income trading business.

For more inofmration, please read [WSJ, 10/18/12]