Volume
Stock Trading Volume Explained — What Heavy and Light Days Really Tell You
Volume is on every chart you have ever looked at. It is also the one thing nobody can tell you how to use.
Five of the fifteen held up. Four held up but are far smaller than you have been told. Six were contradicted outright.
You were taught the rules. Heavy volume confirms a move. Light volume warns that the move is a fake. A spike marks the bottom. Several heavy selling days mean a large holder is getting out. A breakout without volume is a trap. You have probably never been shown a single number behind any of it.
This book counts them. Fifteen things traders are taught about volume were written down as exact rules before anything was measured, then run across 3,399 American stocks and 8.9 million trading days, including more than 1,600 companies that failed or were bought out and no longer appear in anyone's data.
It is written to be used. Part I teaches the fifteen claims the way a believer would state them, with no testing and no spoilers. Part II counts every one. Part III turns the findings into decisions. Every claim is numbered, and a single table gives the verdict on each and the chapter holding the evidence, so you can look up the rule you already believe and go straight to the answer.
It's plain English throughout, with no equations and every term defined where it's used and again in the glossary.
What you'll find out, and be able to do
- Whether a volume spike really marks the low, and the one extra test that changes the answer more than the spike does
- What heavy volume actually buys you, which is not what the textbook promises and is more useful
- Why the most repeated rule about falling stocks is backwards, and what that means if you hold one
- Whether accumulation and distribution predict anything at all
- Reading any volume bar as a multiple, so you can tell heavy from light on a chart you've never seen, with no indicator
- Knowing which breakouts to trust, and what to do about the ones you shouldn't
- A six-step routine for any chart, with no arithmetic, that fits on one page
Fifteen numbered claims, one verdict table, and 20 charts and diagrams drawn from real market history.
Look inside
A few of the book's figures. Select one to see it full size.
- Figure 1.1: volume read as a multiple of normal
- Figure 1.2: the same trades, two questions
- Figure 4.1: the textbook selling climax
- Figure 12.1: a rise with the heavy days on the up side
Who it's for
Anyone who has just noticed the bars under the chart, and traders who have used volume for years without fully trusting it.
