NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - It took a long time, but it looks like investors may have finally thrown in the towel on hoping the Nasdaq's good old days return. Which means that there could actually be better days ahead.

Even though the Nasdaq Composite has been by far the best performer of the major indexes -- not just since the October lows, but going all the way back to late last April -- investor interest in Nasdaq stocks has shriveled up. In the first quarter of this year average daily volume on the Nasdaq stock market was down a whopping 19 percent from the first quarter of 2002.

"This low volume is exactly what the doctor ordered," said Raymond James chief market analyst Ralph Bloch. "It's telling you that a great deal of the speculation has been taken out of the market."

In contrast to what's gone on at the Nasdaq, New York Stock Exchange daily volume actually rose in the first quarter. It's gotten to the point where Nasdaq and NYSE volume are basically running even with one another -- some days one is higher, some days the other. It shows that investors are increasingly interested in making safer bets, preferring to put money with the more established companies traded on the Big Board than pinning their hopes on the bright futures of emerging companies. The Nasdaq's slogan, "the stock market for the next 100 years," doesn't appear to be playing as well as it has in the past.

The drop in Nasdaq volume down to NYSE levels harks back to the early 1990s, when Wall Streeters used to carefully track the ratio between the two. When Nasdaq volume rose above volume on the Big Board, they used to say it was a sign stocks had run up too high. When it dropped below, it was a sign that it was safe to get in the water again.

"Peaks indicated times of intense speculation and troughs indicated times of low interest in the market, when speculation was not high on people's agenda," said John Bollinger, head of Bollinger Capital Management.

The system stopped working in 1995, when Nasdaq volume leapt over volume on the Big Board permanently, it seemed. "Perhaps it will be useful to start looking at the ratio again," said Bollinger.

The drop in Nasdaq volume isn't the only sign that speculation has been wrung out of the market, points out Miller Tabak chief technical analyst Phil Roth. He's been looking at the Nasdaq 100 volatility index, more commonly known as -- because its symbol is "VXN" -- the "Vixen."

The Vixen is a close cousin to the S&P 100 volatility index, or "Vix". Both the Vix and the Vixen measure the implied volatility -- how volatile investors in the options arena think the market is going to be -- of their respective underlying indexes.

The Vixen has, since its launch in 2001, always been much higher than the Vix, but lately it has come down significantly. Unlike a drop in the Vix, which often suggests complacence among investors, Roth thinks the Vixen is falling because there is simply less interest in the Nasdaq in the options arena. That's made options cheaper and, because it is derived from options prices, lowered the level of the Vixen.

"That shows a significant drop in speculative interest," said Roth.

But Bollinger warns that just because it appears that speculation in the Nasdaq may have come down to "normal" levels, doesn't mean that the time has come for a renewed bull market.

"By the time we're done in this cycle, most people will simply not care about stocks," he said. "The entire speculative impulse will be choked off."

Still, he reckons that doesn't mean the Nasdaq is necessarily a dangerous place to invest anymore.

"The Nasdaq's turn to get slaughtered was a couple of years ago," he said. "A good deal of the bloodletting has been done."