Howdy folks… newbie here - been paper trading for 5 months and just went live this week. So far so good - but nervous. So: Any thoughts on a technical indicator that might be closest to something akin to volume in stock trading? I am learning to use Slow Stoch, EMA, BBands and Ichimoku. I don’t know if there might be a mehtod to represent something close to volume of buying or selling. Some other indicator that might show strength of a move - particularly over shorter time periods like 15 min to 1 hour… Any thoughts? Thank you!
volume is a hard object to truly pin down, unlike stocks, because there is no centralized location recording it, but each “broker” does know its own volume and THAT volume is representative (in its proportion of the total market) to what the grand total may be.
what may please you is a little indicator in the MT4 platform called “accumulation/distribution” and it is what it claims.
reasonably nice, especially on the higher timeframes, as a means of seeing what is being done !
think you might like it
enjoy and trade well
mp
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As a child, i used to watch from the darkness as the secrets were debated and annotated by the elders. No one there held a single thought of my presence – BUT I KNOW WHERE THEY HID THE KEY !!
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Well MP, although every broker provides their own retail systems volume, I don’t think that can be said to be representative for the market as a whole.
For example, a few weeks ago when the snow storm in London kept traders from going to work and volume was very thin, this didn’t show at all on Alpari’s volume figures. Which makes perfect sense of course, since those using Alpari to trade most likely were untroubled by blizzards…
I wish there was some way to get a grip on volume in forex, but unless you have access to the interbanking systems, I don’t see how you could.
Well except for maybe watching currency futures volumes.
Best regards
while there will be situations such as you illustrated, that is usually considered a rarity and not the rule, so if one is to take a look at ANY broker, you can imagine them to be a PART of the whole, and while it would take far more research than i would care to put into it, you would “probably” find, under normal conditions, that their little “part” of the world is pretty indicative of the “whole” interbank market, just a smaller part. (sans snowstorms, of course !)
while i dont really pay much attention to volume (maybe a shortcoming, but in stocks, futures, commodities and forex, i just ignore it for some reason and always have) it certainly is a nice guide to the intentions of traders.
BUT, when i do look at it (usually AFTER the fact) i can see where even a brokers “small” sampling would be telling me something, but i use s+r and a few little friendly indicators and they tell me the same things.
I really DO NOT believe, unless one is such a purist that it becomes a highly important compulsion, that using a brokers figures will leave you far from the mark, as traders are trading the same things, be it micro or macro !
brings to mind an old lesson i had in a first year course ----- "if mike and sue are on opposite sides of the room and they take one step forward, then each additional step towards each other is divided in HALF, will they EVER reach each other ?
and the answer is NO, they can never ACTUALLY come together, BUT for ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES THEY WILL BE ABLE TO DO WHAT THEY WISH (assuming they have the room to tear each others cloths off) !
a brokers volume is, [B]for all practical purposes,[/B] quite sufficient except for the compulsive/obsessives or absolute purists amongst us !
obviously, i will now have to add weather reports from around the world, or never be able to trade again ! (LOL)
my opinion of course
enjoy and trade well
mp
Well, imagine that you’re with a broker based in the US. Ergo, most of it’s account holders will be american and trade during hours when americans are awake.
What result will this give?
Most likely, it will inflate volume figures during american waking hours and show weaker figures during for instance European hours.
Due to this, volume info from any broker will be based on the time zone of it’s account holder majority.
I imagine that the interbank volume info doesn’t suffer from this problem.
I’ll agree that, usually, daily and above time frames would give a reasonable representation of actual volume. Intraday I would not put a lot of faith in.
Just my opinion.
Best regards
hey guy,
PLEASE understand that i rarely like to discuss — i offer up something that can be tried and either proven correct or not for ones needs.
I find it a wonderful tool, and its one of four that “my people” use to much success — i cant discuss how and why it works, but works it does and VERY NICELY, alerting to highly overbought and oversold conditions.
if something “other” than what it does is required, i have to agree finding that volume information would be difficult, if not impossible, but for my purposes and those who use it, it provides the information required.
I can only put forth that you try it, since its already on the MT4 platform, and if it doesnt work, it doesnt work — no big deal !
PLEASE note from the attached chart, that it works rather like a very smoothed CCI or Stoch — its the smoothness thats so helpful, IMO !
not that it matters, but my broker is russian – whose market gets inflated then ? LOL
enjoy and trade well
mp
I�ve been using CMS with the VT trader platform and if I understand correctly how it works, the program uses the �tick count� for volume. Theoretically each tick should represent one interbank OTC transaction. What it doesn�t factor in is the lot size of the transaction. So you don�t really end up knowing the number of lots traded, but you do get a rough guide as to what price ranges and times of day are showing the most activity. Bottom line, it’s not the same as volume on the stock exchange but it might be better than nothing.
good luck!
Hi,
can you let me know what is that indicator?
I’m assuming it is the bottom graph with the arrows?
the title said A_D INDICATOR
I’m also using MT4 but can’t find it
there is Accumulation/Distribution Indicator, but it is different
regards,
rucelee
rucelee
that IS the accum/dist indicator overlayed onto the CC1 in one panel — it will look different depending on the currency and timeframe youre using, but for the purposes of truth in advertising, allow that i picked some currency that made the indicator look GOOD ---- you may have a currency or timeframe that makes the indicator look BAD, so i apologize !
mp