Volume¶
Indicators · Volume
Volume histogram with a moving-average overlay and up/down flag.
Volume is the most basic — and most underrated — confirmation tool there is: how many units actually traded on each bar. Price tells you where the market went; volume tells you how much conviction was behind it. A breakout on heavy volume is a different animal from one on a trickle. This block plots the classic volume histogram with a moving-average overlay so you can instantly see whether the current bar's participation is above or below normal.
How it works¶
The block draws per-bar Volume as a histogram in a sub-pane and overlays a Volume MA — a moving average over the MA length (default 20) — as the "normal" baseline. Two helper signals make it wireable: Up bar fires when the bar closed up (so you can separate up-volume from down-volume), and Heavy fires whenever volume exceeds its moving average (an above-average-participation flag). On instruments without true exchange volume (spot forex), this is tick volume — a count of price updates, which correlates with real activity but isn't contract volume.
When to use it¶
Use Volume to confirm. The core principles: genuine breakouts and trend thrusts should come with above-average volume (conviction), while moves on thin volume are suspect and prone to reversal. A climactic volume spike often marks exhaustion at the end of a move. Wire the Heavy flag into your entry logic to demand participation, or use Up bar vs down-bar volume to gauge which side is in control. It's almost never an entry on its own — it's the quality check on someone else's signal.
Example¶
Demand participation on a breakout: wire bars into Volume and require the Heavy flag (volume above average) alongside your breakout trigger through an And gate into a Buy Signal, so thin-volume fakeouts get filtered out. Backtest with and without the volume gate in the Tester.
Tips & gotchas¶
- Confirmation, not a signal. Volume validates a move's conviction; pair it with a price trigger.
- Forex volume is tick volume — a proxy for activity, not contract size; still useful, just know what it is.
- Heavy volume + breakout = conviction; thin = suspect. That's the whole game.
- Climax spikes mark exhaustion as often as continuation — context (where in the move) decides which.
Related blocks¶
Inputs¶
| Socket | Type | What to wire in |
|---|---|---|
| Bars | bars |
Price bars |
Outputs¶
| Output | Type | Plots as | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume | series |
Histogram · sub-pane | Per-bar volume |
| Volume MA | series |
Line · sub-pane | Moving average of volume |
| Up bar | signal |
— | Close ≥ open (up-volume bar) |
| Heavy | signal |
— | Volume above its moving average |
Parameters¶
| Parameter | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| MA length | number · 1–400 | 20 |
|
| MA color | colour | #ffa726 |
|
| Volume color | colour | #78909c |
Reference auto-generated from the block catalog · category Indicators.