In this blog we discuss the volume indicator. This is an essential indicator for most successful traders. It will give you an insight into genuine market moves, where the big money is, and help you avoid false entry signals. We hope this will be helpful to you on your trading journey!
What is the Volume indicator?
The volume indicator is an indicator which can show you the quantity of trades placed in a market over a given time interval (the volume of trades placed). In relation to futures or options, the indicator will display the number of contracts which have been bought or sold over the interval.
We provide below, a picture of the volume indicator on the NASDAQ. You can see that with the strong moves up or down in price, the volume is closely connected – it is in fact the volume which causes the price to rise or fall. Note what is happening to the price in the picture below, within the red highlighted areas.
How can the volume indicator help you in trading?
Sometimes the market makers can cause a price to move without any genuine money behind the move. This can lead to traders entering into trades which look ok on the face of it, but which then don’t end up going anywhere or the price falls back down to where it was. If you see a price move higher but there is no volume, be ware. This may end up being a losing trade. The same is true for shorting the market – be ware of any price movements which are not supported or substantiated by a move in volume.
The volume indicator can also signal to you when the market move is becoming weak or exhausted. If you can see a sharp rise in volume together with a sharp increase in price, this can sometimes represent traders who got in as the market was becoming exhausted and it can mean the number of buyers is now depleted.
Volume can also be used to confirm whether or not the price is consolidating. If the price is ticking along without much volume between a price ‘range’ it maybe that the price is building up some momentum, like a stretched rubber band, and at some point soon, it will break out of the channel and make new highs or lows. You can use the volume indicator to help you avoid ‘false’ breakouts. If the price has broken out without supporting volume, it is likely that the breakout is a false one.
Volume indicators to choose from
There are a number of volume indicators to choose from. This article simply refers to the ‘Volume’ indicator – it can be found on the Trading View charts by searching ‘Volume’.
We hope this article will help you avoid some false break outs and identify some big moves in your favour. Happy trading!
We hope this helped! For more great tips and trading set ups visit our other blog pages at Trader Pro – Trading strategies for success in the financial markets (trader-pro.co.uk)
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