Technical analysis

Volume

Defined in 1 lesson · Updated October 17, 2026

Definition

Volume is the number of shares or contracts traded in a period, usually drawn as bars under the chart. A move on rising volume has more traders behind it than the same move on light volume.

Example

Say a stock trades about 2 million shares on an average day. If it breaks above $60 on 5 million shares, 2.5 times its usual volume, far more traders are behind that move than behind a similar push on 800,000 shares, less than half a normal day. Volume does not show direction by itself, though: every share bought was sold by someone else.

Hypothetical numbers, for illustration only.

A 5-minute chart labeled with this section's terms: yesterday's last candle closes at $100 and today opens at $104, a gap; a dashed box around today's first three candles marks the opening range; volume bars sit underneath; and a magnifier zooms into one candle with a long upper wick to label the wick and the body. A note at the top: each candle is 5 minutes.

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