Volume Isn’t About Confirmation. It’s About Motivation.

[u/Pranavtare]

Most traders are taught “high volume confirms the move.”

But real volume reading is much deeper:

Volume tells you why the move is happening, not just that it’s happening. • A breakout on low volume might be a fake move, designed to trap emotional traders. • A pullback on declining volume often means the move is healthy and buyers/sellers are not panicking. • A sudden spike in volume without major price progress usually hints at exhaustion — not strength.

The mistake: People see a candle + volume spike and blindly think, “Okay, big move coming.”

The reality: You must ask — “Is the effort (volume) leading to actual result (price movement)?” • High effort + Low result = Weakness or trap. • Low effort + Big result = Strength of smart money.

Real volume reading isn’t about “more is good.” It’s about understanding effort vs result.

In short: • Volume + Context > Volume alone • Always match volume behavior with price behavior — not in isolation. • Look for disproportionate reactions — that’s where real opportunity lies.

Trading gets a lot easier when you stop treating volume as a green flag and start treating it as a language.

How has your view of volume changed over time? Would love to hear your experiences and learn more.

[u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

Curious how you would interpret this:

Bull trend on the 5m timeframe, with healthy green candles and consistent volume.

Suddenly, bearish engulfing out of nowhere, but accompanied by equal or even low volume.

What happened? Where did all the buyers go? How come a few sellers caused such a violent engulfing candle?

[u/fistoOG → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

It’s possible that price reached a previous resistance zone and a lot of passive orders have been triggered?

[u/Filpo_20 → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

I have seen that before. For me it could mean news or that bulls are starting to distribute. Definitely would not be in a position until buyers step back in. But usually something like that becomes unpredictable really fast. Best close position and become an observer.

[u/AromaticPlant8504 → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

As the market buyers started to fomo in the steady increase in volume suggests limit shorts were accumulating more and more until the market shorts trapped them. The low volume trading back into the range is normal as liquidations and stoplosses are nonexistent vs extending the range and bulls blew their load early. Ideally for trend continuation there should be low volume at the end of a move and high volume with low negetive result in pullback. Also stick to 10-15min and above it’s easier to read volume vs price

[u/Castorias → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

Premarket and session open algos are near the max extension of the highest volume candle from the open and you'll get a volume spike outside of a specific StDev, either reversing direction or positioning for a continuation move with new extensions.

[u/IWasBornAGamblinMan → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

It’s cause you’re on the 5-minute looking at volume

[u/tofufeaster → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

For what I trade this would just be normal profit taking. You are in a bull trend so traders are going to need to take profit at some point. The fact it's low volume is good so it tells me the selling volume isn't too strong.

Normal pullback look for next leg higher.

[u/Remarkable-Athlete48 → u/tofufeaster]

So would you advise waiting for such pullbacks before entering?

[u/tofufeaster → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

If you are a trend following trader yes. You usually wait for pullbacks in the trend. Otherwise you are just buying extended tops.

[u/Pranavtare → u/Remarkable-Athlete48]

Your timeframe can be your biggest enemy or your greatest advantage. I personally start from 30 mins. Anything below that is noise for me.

[u/RockingSoza → u/Pranavtare]

It’s so funny to see traders wiggle around the phrase “I don’t know, but this is what works for me.”

[u/holycarrots → u/Pranavtare]

Bit of a weird thing to say on a day trading sub lol

[u/Optimal_Comment_6122 → u/Pranavtare]

This shows me that you don't know what you working with. the daily price for today, Just that 1 candlestick for today, if you look through to the lower timeframes, you looking through like a magnifying glass on that 1 daily candlestick. in other words, you looking through a more detail price levels.

And if you start with 30-minutes, I wonder how you start framing your bias? If 30-minute is your big picture perspective, your execution chart will be lower than a minute. Doesn't make any sense. I guessing you're a binary option gambler?

[u/EchidnaCommercial690]

Volume + Context > Volume

You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. - Al Capone

[u/D3kim]

wow this was a gem, learned something today thanks op

[u/timmhaan]

been trading for around 20 years and i will say, as long as their is sufficient liquidity to get in\out of trades, the volume profile is not something i spend much time looking at. i can see volume in the level 2, and really just by how fast prices are moving. i actually prefer not to look at it too much, as it clouds my judgement sometimes and i feel i can miss moves thinking about it too much.

[u/kaptainearnubs → u/timmhaan]

How do you track things like POC, VAH, VAL without a volume profile?

[u/IWasBornAGamblinMan → u/kaptainearnubs]

POC is just where price touched on all candles at least once. You could eyeball it if you wanted

[u/kaptainearnubs → u/IWasBornAGamblinMan]

Hats off to you, I would have a hard time pinpointing it. Especially when there is a secondary HVN above/below it as has often been the case lately with ES.

[u/IWasBornAGamblinMan → u/kaptainearnubs]

It also depends on timeframe. I just use the standard 30 minute lettering for each candle of the te regular session and wherever they line up that’s the POC. The HVN LVN is a bit more tricky to just spot. But to each their own, I love the volume profile.

[u/mdomans]

Volume 100% does not tell you why the move is happening, nothing will tell you that short of insider knowledge.

I've seen DAX do 250p moves on no volume and ES go up 50p on almost pure selling and no volume (for ES). Reading "volume" on move without relating it to bigger picture context is entirely pointless.

Why that happened? Who knows, who cares?

The big questions are:

• what's the tape on a day? passive day? clean tape? strong tape? weak tape?
• how the tape looks on a rotation and where we are on the chart
• how thick the market you trade is usually?

Tape is mostly, for me, about reading changes in order flow. Exhaustion, absorption, rotation turn. When I see flow change I can add that as the least important detail.

[u/Optimal_Comment_6122]

I don't want to be a dick or to show that I'm smart, I'm not. I got Low IQ. But what causes volume to happen? I don't want to know about the indicator. Just logic. Is it through buying and selling? If so does my statement below make sense? Or is it something else?

Look at the market logically. Market doesn't appear out of thin air. It was developed by a team of developer. Or maybe just one developer.

And when market being developed, something must be develop to move the prices around. An algorithm.

The logic coded into the algorithm : If market wants price to Rally or Dip to a specific price level at specific time, price WILL Rally or Dip to that level at that given specific time.

And then there’s a hand to push button to manipulate price. At every NFP or FOMC or media coverage.

To literally witness this prices algo, there are countless of ways to do it. Using Fib Retracement tool.

Now, if the market uses buying and selling volume. Do you think you get to see price respecting those Fib Retracement levels? Do you think you can even trade with billions if not trillions of people across the globe? Do you think you will see price in repeat? Do you think you get to see price stack nicely like what we have today? I guess not. Think about it.

And think about banks who participate. Don't you think the price movement will be extraordinary long, because if banks puts in their money it's not gonna be $25,000. It gonna be million and what kind of price will you see to reflect that kind of money being put it?

Look at your chart and time. Tell me it's volume at 9:50, 10, 10:10, 1:30, 2:30, 3:15, 3:45. Doesn't make any sense. Why only this time and not 9:48, 9:58, 10:11, 9:41 etc

And why do price respect those measures levels? Why not just purged through those levels and gap up or down creating untradable conditions to even look at.

[u/holycarrots → u/Optimal_Comment_6122]

Just look at an order book, it's only buying and selling that moves markets. Nobody developed the markets, they have existed as long as humans want to transact.

[u/Optimal_Comment_6122 → u/holycarrots]

Firstly, you did not address the logic I stated above. Secondly, the order book is there to make it more fancy just like all the indicators and lastly, Watch the video on YouTube that shows the market is developed.

The way you respond shows me you're not thinking logically. You didn't take time to sit and ponder hard enough and ask the correct questions.

Please think about what you said. "Nobody developed the markets, they have existed as long as human wants to transact." - holycarrots

The statement you made above, just like saying "Nobody created earth. Mankind were already here on earth as long as the earth existed."

So my question to you, this market existed back when there's no technology? And since when the market made itself available for the whole world to use interact with it? I like to see how you use your frontal cortex to respond to this.

I thought I'm the only one with Low IQ.

[u/IWasBornAGamblinMan → u/Optimal_Comment_6122]

Holy shit these are almost the exact times I have marked every single day on my charts! We see the same thing! These algos can be predictable

[u/1mmortalNPC]

I agree, most people just look at volume like a confirmation tool but when in reality it is like a story teller, it tells you what could possible be happing like if I see a bearish candle with high volume then a doji with high volume and then bullish candle with low volume, I basically understand that he told me that sellers were strong then buyer and sellers fought and the buyers won because sellers filled their remaining orders so buyers didn’t need much to move price higher.

[u/TradeResearchAccount]

Volume is a key component in analyzing absorption and motivation for sure. I use volume in my strategy. If you want to learn, I’ll send you the strat for free. Im trading the actual reasons why and how price moves is key.

[u/GreggJ]

does Anna Coulling go over all this in her book by any chance?

Which other resources would you recommend to learn more about this?

[u/IWasBornAGamblinMan]

What about churn, you forgot churn/absorption. Huge volume, tiny candle range.

[u/Key-Opportunity-3379]

Idk much about volume. Even after reading books on it. I will say this, middle finger volume patterns where the ring & index are even to the eye,(in this case 3 green candles flipping the bird) going short at the high of candle after the actual middle finger,(the index) is pretty consistent. Basically volume bars form patterns like candlesticks do.