
Stock volume is the count of the number of shares traded in a given time period, usually daily for a typical chart. For any trade, 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. Stock volume is the count of shares traded, not the dollar value of the shares exchanged.
Full Answer
What can volume tell you about a stock?
Jun 20, 2019 · A stock's volume refers to the number of shares that are sold, or traded, over a certain period of time (usually daily). A high daily volume is common when stock-specific news items are released ...
What does volume have to do with stock trading?
On-balance volume indicator (OBV) is an indicator that measures the volume of a stock in relation to whether its price is rising or fallingIn practice, it works like this: For example, let’s say that yesterday the stock closed at 5000 shares. Today, if the stock closes higher than yesterday, the OBV = yesterday’s OBV (5000) + today’s volume.
What impact does the stock volume have on the stock?
Apr 14, 2022 · Volume is the number of shares of a stock that have changed hands over a certain period of time. Stocks with higher volumes have more investors interested in …
What determines the stock volume of the stock?
Jan 12, 2021 · The volume of a stock indicates the market activity and liquidity of a given stock. You can determine the trading volume by calculating the total amount of shares traded.

What does high volume tell you about a stock?
What volume is a good volume for stocks?
What does the volume of a stock tell you?
Volume measures the number of shares traded in a stock or contracts traded in futures or options. Volume can indicate market strength, as rising markets on increasing volume are typically viewed as strong and healthy. When prices fall on increasing volume, the trend is gathering strength to the downside.
Is it good for a stock to have high volume?
Is it good to buy stocks with low volume?
Is high volume good for cryptocurrency?
Is low volume bullish or bearish?
Down volume indicates bearish trading, while up volume indicates bullish trading. If the price of a security falls, but only on low volume, there may be other factors at work aside from a true bear turn.
What does the 52 week high and low tell us about a stock?
Is volume the same as shares outstanding?
Is it worth it to buy 1 share of stock?
How do you read volume?
What if volume is higher than market cap?
What is volume in stock?
Volume refers to the number of shares traded in a given time period. A stock's volume refers to the number of shares that are sold, or traded, over a certain period of time (usually daily).
What is volume in investing?
Broadly speaking, volume in investing means the total amount of a security that changes hands over a given period of time. This can refer to shares of an individual stock, the number of options contracts traded, or the total number of shares exchanged within an index or an entire stock market.
What is volume in stock?
Volume is the number of shares of a stock that have changed hands over a certain period of time. Stocks with higher volumes have more investors interested in buying or selling them.
What does it mean when a stock has a high volume?
When a stock has an unusually high volume, it means something is going on with the company that investors should probably know about.
What is volume price trend indicator?
The volume price trend indicator helps investors figure out the direction of a stock and the strength of changes in the price.
Is volume good for stocks?
There is no clear definition of what a good volume is for stocks. Instead, it makes more sense to look at volume as part of the big picture when evaluating a particular stock. Traders usually use volume in combination with other factors like whether the price is declining or increasing, and how much volatility there is.
What does it mean when a stock is rising?
When a stock is rising, it indicates strength. Investors can make an assessment of how convicted traders are about a particular stock, or the market in general. High volumes indicate a strong conviction with the direction in which the stock or market is moving.
What is a bullish indicator?
A key bullish indicator is when a stock price is falling but volume is increasing, ahead of a share price rebound, followed by another decline. If the stock price doesn't fall below the previous low when it declines the second time, and volume is down during that second decline, it is usually a bullish indicator.
Who is Michelle Jones?
Previously, she was a television news producer for eight years.
What does volume mean in stock?
Volume is the lifeblood of any stock. It represents the interest in the trading activity of said shares. Heavier volume indicates heavier interest and vice versa or lighter volume. A rise in volume tends to kick off significant price moves in many cases, however it is not a requirement. Despite conventional thinking, ...
What is volume in stock trading?
Volume is counted as the total number of shares that are actually traded (bought and sold) during the trading day or specified set period of time. It is a measure of the total turnover of shares. Each ticket represents a trade and counted towards the total trading volume.
Stocks with a high trading volume
The trading volume indicates the number of shares traded on a daily basis. It's a measure of the number of shares that are traded during a specified period. The volume of a stock indicates the market activity and liquidity of a given stock. You can determine the trading volume by calculating the total amount of shares traded.
Good average volume in stocks
Stocks can be classified as high volume or low volume depending on their trading activity. Low-volume stocks are thinly traded, while high-volume stocks trade often. There isn’t a clear dividing line between the two.
What's a high-volume stock?
Investors are more interested in buying and selling high-volume shares, which generally results from a news event. High-volume stocks are usually less volatile. The stock is less likely to witness huge swings in stock prices on a trading day. High-volume stocks can reduce your risk factor because they are liquid.
What it means when a stock's volume is low
Low volume means that the stock is less liquid. Usually, these stocks aren't trading because few investors want them. The lack of liquidity makes low-volume stocks difficult to sell even though the share price appreciates. Low-volume stocks can lead to price manipulation and are attractive to scammers.
Why is volume important in the stock market?
Volume is an important indicator as it confirms the strength of a trend. Many traders use volume daily in timing their day trading entries and exits.
Why do traders use volume?
Many traders use volume daily in timing their day trading entries and exits. Also they watch it for swing trades. When volume is used as confirmation of a trade , it becomes a helpful tool. Studies you might use to monitor volume are called Volume profile, Volume by price, and On balance Volume, to name a few good ones.
How is the price of a stock determined?
The price of a stock is determined by Supply and demand. Sellers provide supply, and when there is an imbalance in the market where there is more supply than demand – which is provided by buyers – price will move down. Conversely, if there is greater demand for a stock than supply, price will move up.
What happens when volume is low?
If volume is generally low in a given stock, sudden spikes in demand or supply can cause very rapid changes in price. If you enter a limit order and set a specific price to sell shares of a stock and your order isn’t getting filled, it means that no one wants to buy your shares at that price.
Why are technical indicators important?
Technical indicators are all important. They show us the trends, support and resistance lines and the patterns of a stock. They give us the information needed to make the best decision when trading. Volume is one simple and fundamental indicator that you can use.
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 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.
What does volume change mean?
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 the best volume indicator?
The Best Volume Indicator. While there are no “best” volume indicators, there are three essential volume indicators. The Volume Bar indicator is the most used and indicates supply and demand for a time period. The Volume at Price indicator shows the supply and demand at a specific price level.
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 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.
Is a downtrend bearish or uptrend?
In an uptrend, this is very bearish as it suggests that although prices are rising, there are fewer participants suggesting people are backing away from the higher prices. This also infers that the trend is weakening. In a downtrend, it suggests a continuance of the downtrend.
Is volume important in investing?
Calculating volume is easy. Understanding what volume means is more important. While this should never be the only factor when weighing an investment or trading decision, it should always play a role, as it can impact your investments and trading strategy.
Is the bid ask spread wide?
With illiquid stocks, the bid-ask spread is going to be wide , which can be costly. A high-volume stock, such as the aforementioned BAC, often has a tight bid-ask spread of a penny, which should do you minimal to no harm. When you look at daily trading volume, don’t just look at the trading volume for that particular day.
Who is Dan Moskowitz?
Dan Moskowitz is a freelance financial writer who has 4+ years of experience creating content for the online reading market. Learn about our editorial policies. Dan Moskowitz. Updated Apr 2, 2020. If you ever look at the volume leaders for the trading day, you will almost always find Bank of America Corporation ( BAC ).
What does volume mean in trading?
Volume can describe pieces of information that cannot be relayed by price. Since trading volume is the number of shares traded during a given period it indicates the overall activity of a stock. What is important to determine is whether the volume is average volume, low volume, or heavy volume relative to previous trading periods.
What is volume used for?
Volume when used along with price can help you determine the future direction of a stock. Several indicators incorporate volume as a trading indicator. One of the most popular is the Relative Volume ratio.
What is the goal of a stock trader?
As a trader, one of your goals is to capture the change in the price of a stock. To do this, you want to collect as much information about the shares, including how much of it is traded.
What does it mean when volume declines?
Trade volume and liquidity are considered interrelated. When volume declines it indicates a low overall market interest in that particular security.
How to calculate relative volume?
The relative volume ratio is calculated by taking today’s volume and dividing by a prior day’s volume or the average of a few days.
What does high volume mean?
High levels of volume generally reflect stronger levels of liquidity. When volume declines substantially liquidity also falls. You can formulate certain studies that will describe the momentum of volume and use that in conjunction with price to determine future price changes.
What is a put/call ratio?
A volume indicator that uses options volume is called the put/call ratio. The ratio is an indicator that shows put volume relative to call volume. Puts are generally used to hedge adverse changes to the price of a stock. Calls are used to mitigate the risk of advancing stocks. The put/call ratio is often used as a market sentiment indicator.

Appearance
Purpose
- The trading volume is a measure of the total shares that have changed hands for a specific time period. The dollar volume is the total value of the shares traded. Dollar volume is calculated by trading volume multiplied by price. For example, if XYZ has a total trading volume of 100,000 shares at $5, then the dollar volume is $500,000. Money managers use dollar volume metrics to …
Significance
- Volume is the lifeblood of any stock. It represents the interest in the trading activity of said shares. Heavier volume indicates heavier interest and vice versa or lighter volume.
Effects
- A rise in volume tends to kick off significant price moves in many cases, however it is not a requirement. Despite conventional thinking, breakouts or breakdowns dont always require heavy volume especially in this age of algorithms that know precisely what price levels will efficiently trigger significant movement. Many traders have gone bust shorting light volume breakouts tha…
Use
- The cliché Never short a dull market. plays right into this. Often times, the heaviest volume bar forms at the peak of the move. It indicates the last of the chasers. This is why heavy volume hammer and shooting star candlesticks can form highly effective reversal signals. Volume analysis should be used in the context of the trading market environment with other supporting t…
Definition
- Liquidity refers to how much the market can absorb either buying or selling without making a market impact. How many shares can you buy or sell without moving the price of the stock? Liquidity overrides price. This is especially true for large stock traders and fund managers. High frequency trading programs and smart algorithms detects large orders and can possibly front ru…
Example
- For example, If you own 100,000 shares of a stock currently trading at $8 with an average daily volume 1 million shares, you may cause the stock to fall to $7 when selling the shares in a single session, resulting in an average selling price of $7.50. So while the value of the position is worth $8 million, the actual value of the position is $7.5 million. There was a $500,000 market impact o…