If you had to delete every indicator and keep one input besides price, keep volume. It is the only thing on the chart that distinguishes a move with participation from a move without one.
Relative volume is the useful form
Raw volume is meaningless across names: 400k shares is enormous for one stock and nothing for another. Relative volume (RVOL) normalises it: today's volume against the same stock's typical volume for that time of day. RVOL of 20 means twenty times the usual participation, which is a statement about attention rather than price.
Compare against the same *minute of day*, not the daily average. A name that has traded its full daily average by 09:35 is not "at 1× RVOL" in any useful sense.
Float rotation
Session volume divided by float. A name that has traded 3.8× its float has turned over every available share nearly four times. That is not a liquidity statistic: it is a statement about ownership. Almost everyone holding at that point bought today, which means almost everyone holding is fast money with a short time horizon.
The four combinations
| Price | Volume | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Up | Rising | Confirmed. Participation is joining the move. |
| Up | Falling | Suspect. Fewer buyers each bar: the classic pre-fade signature. |
| Down | Rising | Real distribution, or a flush. Either way, it is not a quiet drift. |
| Down | Falling | A drift. Often the healthiest pullback shape in an uptrend. |
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