Trading Strategy: Forget Price, Try Trading Volume

Are you ignoring the volume bars at the bottom of your price chart? It’s not unusual. Loads of traders prefer to track prices or fundamentals when choosing a currency pair. At first glance, volume doesn’t seem to be the most powerful indicator, but there’s more to trading volume than meets the eye.

The volume section of your trading platform shows the total lots of the selected currency pair being bought or sold. For example, whenever heavyweight investors start opening huge trading contracts, trading volume quickly rises. Moreover, if the world’s media channels suddenly popularize a particular currency pair, trading volume tends to rise shortly after as thousands of traders open orders. In other words, trading volume is—among other things—a popularity meter. But how is that useful to you?

Volume and leverage

Before we even think about placing an order, we should first consider how volume relates to leverage. “Why leverage?” you may ask. What could volume and leverage have in common? Leverage is an important choice when you first go through the signup process. With Exness, you can open and manage multiple trading accounts from one convenient Personal Area. Each account can have a different leverage setting, which is very useful if you wish to trade both high volatility and low volatility pairs. The rule of leverage is simple and will give your trading strategy a solid foundation.

• low trading volume = low liquidity = high volatility = lower leverage
• high trading volume = high liquidity = low volatility = higher leverage

A highly volatile currency pair could create huge profits when combined with high leverage, but such fragile orders tend to ‘Stop Out’ underfunded trading accounts in minutes when massive price fluctuations occur. Not recommended! Instead, try comparing the trading volumes of your favorite pairs with the major and minor currencies. If your pair is experiencing lower volume, then you might want to use a trading account with a lower leverage setting. Checking the volume of your preferred currency pairs could save you a lot of disappointment.

Strong price vs high price

Volume can be used to measure the ‘strength’ of a price shift, which answers a common question every trader asks themselves on a daily basis. “Is this price shift a coming reversal or just another bump in the road?”

Let’s consider a currency in a long-term downtrend. One day, the price begins to rise. Is this a breakout in the making, or just another fluctuation? A change in trend depends on many factors, but the first place to start checking is the trading volume. If the trading volume is low at the time of a price increase, then the market move is probably just a hiccup and the downtrend will return with a vengeance.

On the other hand, if the volume has been higher than usual, then you might be seeing the early stages of a price reversal. In a nutshell, low volume direction changes don’t stick. There are always exceptions to every trading strategy, but spotting a weak reversal is a very strong indicator.

How to test the trading strategy

Try opening up your trading platform and targeting a currency pair on the Market Watch list. Look back over the last few weeks until you find a significant fall in the trading volume, then check what happened to the price shortly after. Match your leverage to the average volume, then wait for the next possible breakout. If the price is reversing and the volume is rising, then the pair could be an attractive trading opportunity that deserves investigation or investment.

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Disclaimer: the publication of analysis is a marketing communication and does not constitute investment advice or research. Its content represents the general views of our experts and does not consider individual readers’ personal circumstances, investment experience or current financial situation. Analysis is not prepared in accordance with legal requirements promoting independent investment research and Exness is not subject to any prohibition on dealing before the release of analytics. Readers should consider the possibility that they might incur losses. Exness is not liable for any losses incurred due to the use of analysis. Risk warning: CFDs are leveraged products. Trading them carries a high level of risk, so it is not appropriate for all investors. The value of investments can both increase and decrease and an investor may lose all their invested capital. Under no circumstances shall the Company have any liability to any person or entity for any loss or damage in whole or part caused by, resulting from or relating to any transactions in CFDs. © 2008—2019, Exness