Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Dan Fannon – Jeffries & Co.
Dan Fannon – Jeffries & Co.
Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. Mickey, you've mentioned previously in the year that you talked beyond the third quarter, you'd highlighted a return to year-over-year growth by year end. Can you update us on your thoughts there about how you think about, you know, the fourth quarter or 2010 in terms of growth returning?
Michael Gooch
Yes, I still see that. I'm still confident that we'll see year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter. Of course at that point the comp is becoming less challenging. One of the things about the third quarter of '08 was that it was very much in the run up to the, you know, peak of the credit crisis eventually culminating with the bankruptcy of Lehman.
So we're on a difficult comp this quarter and so that's why we're looking at this 20% to 23% projection down year-over-year because of the tough comp. Although even just with the activity within the last few days, I'm already leaning towards the lower end of that projection.
Of course, what is sort of uncertain to all of us right now is how August is going to be simply because it's August with potentially large European holidays and things like that, and we just without anything significant happening in the market it's difficult to really say where that's going to come out. But we're pretty confident that September's going to be a good return to business month, and then a solid quarter in the fourth quarter that will be a growth year over year.
And then 2010, I'm still fully expecting to see year over year growth over 2008. I think that by then there will be more certainty in the marketplace. One of the things that hangs over the market is uncertainty and as long as the various regulatory initiatives are being debated and some of the politicking is going on and some of the various discussions that you've probably been reading about today in the various press, vis-à-vis compensation on Wall Street and derivative trading, etc.
As long as those uncertainties are hanging over the market I think that it does depress potential trading volumes. But once the certainty – once the legislation has moved forward and we know where we'll stand – I really do think that the market will rebound very healthily.
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