Stock FAQs

how to check the volume of a stock

by Prof. Orlo Abshire Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
image

  • Obtain Charting Software. The number of shares bought and sold through an exchange over a given period is commonly called a stock's volume.
  • Select a Stock to Analyze. Many brokers offer their clients charting software as part of their service package. ...
  • Activate the Volume Indicator. Type the name or ticker of the stock you want to analyze into your charting software. ...
  • Track Volume With a Moving Average. Almost all charting software offers the option to overlay indicators onto your charts. Locate the indicators list and select "Volume."
  • A Manual Alternative. Most charting software will automatically insert a moving average into the volume indicator histogram.

Where To Find Volume on a Chart. All trading/charting platforms can visually display volume throughout the trading day usually at the bottom of the price chart. Volume is typically displayed as a vertical bar representing the total volume for the specific incremental charting time period.

Full Answer

What can volume tell you about a stock?

the Ask Volume?

  • The Basics of Reported Trades. Stocks are quoted "bid" and "ask" rates. ...
  • The Role of Volume. Volume is the number of shares traded. ...
  • Understanding Trading Psychology. ...
  • Exploring Price Trends. ...
  • Evaluating Institutional Action. ...

How to analyze stocks trading on volume?

Volume Analysis in Day Trading

  • Buying Volume. ...
  • Selling Volume. ...
  • Relative Volume. ...
  • Higher Volume. ...
  • Analyzing Stock Price Movements. ...
  • Pullbacks. ...
  • The Final Word. ...
  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Which stock exchange has the most volume on average? ...

What is the average volume of a stock?

In that particular session, Stock kicked-off at the price ... Consumer Cyclical managed to top a trading volume set approximately around 573046 for the day, which was evidently lower, when compared to the average daily volumes of the shares.

What does volume indicate in stocks?

low volume

  • Low Volatility. Stocks that have a high volume of trades may be less volatile, reducing risk factors.
  • Liquidity. As discussed, liquidity offers the ability to buy and sell stocks easily. ...
  • Narrow gaps. Stocks with high volumes seem to have closer gaps between the bid and ask price, offering better opportunities for buyers and sellers.

image

How do you determine the volume of a stock?

Volume is often shown along the bottom of an asset's price chart. It is usually depicted as a vertical bar, representing the number of contracts, shares, or lots traded during the time frame shown on the chart.

How do you know if a stock has a lot of volume?

High Volume Stocks and Low Volume Stocks High volume stocks trade more often. Meanwhile, low volume stocks are more thinly traded. There's no specific dividing line between the two. However, high volume stocks typically trade at a volume of 500,000 or more shares per day.

What is the best volume indicator?

The 6+ Best Volume Indicators in Day TradingVWAP.Volume-Weighted Moving Average (VWMA)Money Flow Index (MFI)Accumulation and distribution indicator.Klinger Oscillator.On Balance Volume (OBV)Other volume indicators.

Is low volume bullish or bearish?

Understanding Down Volume Down volume is the opposite of up volume, in which a security's price increases with higher volume. Down volume indicates bearish trading, while up volume indicates bullish trading.

High Volume Stock Screener

High volume usually implies something interesting is going on in a stock. We may not know the why behind the move for some time. The example I show below is a stock that first alerted on a high volume scan, and then alerted again four hours later, on a ‘social media’ screener. The stock was already up over 6% by then.

High Volume Penny Stocks

All of the above can also be used to find high volume penny stocks. But as penny stocks are so popular, I have written a separate article just for penny stocks. See How To Find Good Penny Stocks.

Summary

When it comes to finding high volume stocks, Trade Ideas has some of the best filter options for volume, particularly intraday volume.

What is volume in stocks?

Volume in stocks refers to the total number of shares traded for a particular period. If 2 million shares are traded in a day, the day’s trading volume is 2 million. Importantly this means that 2 million stocks change hands from buyer to seller.

What is stock volume?

Stock volume is the count of the number of shares traded in a given time period, usually daily for a typical chart. For any given transaction, there is a buyer and a seller; the stock volume is a count of the number of shares exchanged between a buyer and a seller.

What is volume bar chart?

The Volume Bar Chart enables you to visualize supply and demand for a given stock at a specific minute, hour, day, week, or month. This is the most commonly used volume indicator in the technical analysis of stocks and commodities.

What does it mean when a stock has high volume?

High volume in stocks can mean two things. High volume when the price is decreasing means there are more sellers than buyers; a sell-off. High volume when the stock price is going up means there is a rally in the stock price, meaning more buyers than sellers, which increases demand, which pushes stock price up.

How much volume does a penny stock have?

Penny stocks often do not have enough volume. For example, if the stock price is $1 and the volume is 5,000, that means only $5000 of stocks is traded in a single day; that is not for a fair and equitable market.

What does 20,000 mean in stock bar?

If 20,000 shares were traded, then the bar will show 20,000. The changes in volume from day to day indicate that a stock is more in demand if the volume bar rises and the stock price increases or less in demand if volume drops on price decreases.

What is a VAP chart?

The Price at Volume (VAP) chart displays a horizontal bar overlayed on the price chart to provide insight into the number of stocks traded at a specific price point. This shows you the potential supply and demand variance or potential pivot point at a price level regardless of time.

What does volume mean in options?

Volume represents the number of contracts traded during the current or latest market session. The higher the volume, the greater the number of options traded. In general, a higher volume means a lower spread between the "bid" and "ask" prices, the prices at which you can sell or buy the option.

When is the highest volume of an option?

Option volume is highest in the weeks and days before expiration , and at strike prices closest to the current price. However, buying or selling an option soon to expire represents a riskier trade, as the "time value" of the option is rapidly deteriorating.

What does volume mean in stocks?

So, what is volume in stocks? Volume is the total number of shares that are traded between buyers and sellers during a specific period, such as a day, week or month.

High volume vs. low volume

One of the easiest ways to identify volume is on a bar chart, which is a chart made up of bars showing trading volume over a specific period of time. When the bars move higher than the average, it can indicate high trading volume at a specific price for that particular time frame.

How does volume affect stock price?

When a stock’s trading volume rises, it can signify that investor demand is high, and stock prices may go up as well. One approach traders use to evaluate a stock is technical analysis. This trading method analyzes trends such as price shifts and volume to help investors assess stocks and identify opportunities to trade.

How to use volume in stocks

When using volume as part of a trading plan, having some strategies for analyzing the strengths or weaknesses of a move can be beneficial, as they can provide insight into an entry or exit point. A few things to identify include:

Helpful volume indicators

We’ve seen that volume can be an important signal for evaluating stock trends, and several indicators may offer some value when making investment decisions. Although there are a variety of volume indicators available, they may not all be relevant for you, as each investor differs in their approach.

The Bottom Line

Trading volume is a valuable tool in evaluating the strength or weakness of a stock at any given time. It offers information about and can assist in confirming price moves and breakouts that can identify price changes and reversals in the stock market, which can help determine trading strategies.

Why do traders track volume?

Traders and investors often track volume levels to help them decide when to buy and sell stocks, with the aim of taking a position or locking in profits from a position they already hold. You can track volume visually or manually.

What is the ticker of a stock?

The ticker is the two-, three- or four-letter abbreviation used to identify a publicly traded company. This will bring up a chart of the company's stock price movements over a set period.

How to overlay indicators on a chart?

Almost all charting software offers the option to overlay indicators onto your charts. Locate the indicators list and select "Volume." This will insert a histogram below the price chart. Each bar on the histogram represents a time frame equal to your chart's period setting. For example, if your chart period setting is 30 minutes, each bar on the volume chart represents 30 minutes of trading. The numbers along the vertical axis of the histogram tell you how many shares were exchanged over the period, so the higher the bar, the higher the volume.

What is a moving average?

A moving average is a line plotted from a preset number of preceding periods. The default moving average on the Free Stock Charts site, for example, is preset to 50 periods, meaning it calculates the average volume of the previous 50 periods of trading.

Use live stock market quotes in stocks trading software

Do you want to know how to monitor this value real time? It’s easy. All you need is free trading software such as Medved Trader (new product created by former creators of Quotetracker) and a real-time data source (like your broker or a specialized data provider).

Alternative to check intraday stock market volume

If you have not this software you can try to achieve this result by different way. Put your ticker into watchlist into your trade software. Then monitor current daily volume of these shares. Also check average volume available on Yahoo finance website. Here is example where to look for this info for AAPL :

The broker software could be also used to monitor stock volume

Another option is to monitor todays trade volume real-time in your trade software that is provided by stocks broker. Short term traders often receive real time trading data also to this broker platform so there is possible to monitor intraday values. The only issue is if there is available also average trading volume in this platform.

How to compare daily volume to intraday volume?

First, place average volume next to real-time volume on a quote sheet, using the proximity to compare dozens of securities at the same time. Second, build a running total of average daily volume and superimpose it over volume histograms at the bottom of the chart. This second method can also be used for end-of-day analysis, as well as measuring the impact of a rising or falling average over time.

Is intraday equity volume skewed?

Updated Aug 18, 2019. Intraday equity volume can be tough to read because market participation is skewed toward the beginning and end of the trading day, with volume shrinking through the lunch hour and picking up in the late afternoon.

What is momentum stock?

The best momentum stocks have high relative volume. This means they are trading well above the typical number of shares they trade per day. Stocks will usually trade at above-average levels of volume when they are gapping up or down due to some type of catalyst, like earnings reports, FDA approval, or analyst upgrades or downgrades. Check out the daily of TWLO:

Can momentum stocks trade at above average volume?

Momentum stocks can still trade at above-average volume without a catalyst. Another cause of a stock trading at above-average volume is a technical breakout on the daily chart. Look at the SQ daily chart when it broke out in March:

How much volume do high volume stocks trade?

Howerver, high volume stocks typically trade at a volume of 500,000 or more shares per day. Low volume stocks would be below that mark. Pros and cons of trading high volume stocks. Minimize volatility: By nature, a stock that’s trading at a higher volume may be less volatile.

What is trading volume?

Trading volume is a way to measure how often a security trades over a set period of time. Traders often measure volume on a daily basis. But they also measure trading volume over shorter or longer time frames. For example, you might analyze trading volume over the previous 30 days or year to date.

Why does volume pick up?

For example, trading volume may pick up if political or economic fears trigger a sell-off. On the other hand, if volume increases along with prices then that may signal a strong market. High Volume Stocks and Low Volume Stocks. Stocks can be categorized as high volume or low volume, based on their trading activity.

Why is tracking volume important?

For example, tracking volume can help you get a sense of where the market is going collectively. If the volume is on the increase overall , you can go deeper to analyze what’s driving higher trading activity. Specifically, you’d want to look at how prices are moving in connection with trading volume.

Does trading volume help with false breakouts?

If the higher price holds, a breakout may follow. Trading volume can also help you pinpoint potentially false breakouts when a stock is signaling that it’ s share price is about to increase but it actually isn’t. The Bottom Line. Trading volume is just one way to evaluate stocks when deciding whether to buy or sell.

image
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9