What is Volume?
Volume measures participation: a high reading means a crowd set the price, a low one that a handful of trades did. Every trade has exactly one buyer and one seller, so volume can never show more buyers than sellers; it shows how much conviction stood behind a move, not its direction. Compare it with the instrument's usual volume, and for crypto check whether the figure covers one exchange or the whole market.
Also called trading volume, traded volume
Participation, not direction: every trade has exactly one buyer and one seller.
Same breakout, different crowds (illustrative)
- Usual daily volume (shares)
- 200,000
- Breakout day, case A (shares)
- 600,000
- Breakout day, case B, holiday week (shares, half of usual)
- 100,000
- Case A volume vs usual
- 3xMore participation behind A. Neither case says which way the price goes next.