What volume means
Volume is how much trading happened during a bar: a candle on a chart, covering a set period such as an hour.
- On an exchange (stocks, futures), volume is the real number of shares or contracts that changed hands. The exchange records every trade centrally.
- In spot forex and OTC CFDs, there is no central exchange. A CFD (contract for difference) is a contract with a broker on a price change, not a trade on an exchange. No single venue sees all trades, so real total volume is not available.
Charting platforms use tick volume instead. A tick is a price update from the broker's feed. Tick volume counts how many times the price changed during the bar.
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Formula and settings
Tick volume of a bar = the count of price updates received during that bar
The figure is a count of updates. It does not measure lots or money. The idea behind it is that busy markets update the price more often, so tick volume tends to rise and fall with real activity.
The standard MetaTrader Volumes indicator has almost no parameters:
| Setting | MT4 | MT5 |
|---|---|---|
| Volume type | Tick only | Tick or Real (Real works only where the symbol provides exchange data) |
| Colours | Bar is one colour when volume is higher than the previous bar, another when lower | Same logic |
| Period | None. It plots raw bar values | None |
Many traders add a moving average of volume on top so they can judge "above normal" or "below normal". The length of that average is your choice. A shorter average reacts faster but is noisier.
How to add it in MT4/MT5
In both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5: open the chart, go to Insert → Indicators → Volumes → Volumes, choose the colours (and the volume type in MT5), and confirm. The histogram appears in a separate window under the price. You can also drag it from the Navigator panel.
How to read it: a drawn example
The chart below is a sketch, not real prices:
- A: Quiet range. Low tick volume shows little activity.
- B: The price leaves the range and volume expands. More participants are active at the move.
- C: The price keeps rising but volume fades. The move is happening with less activity. This is often called weak participation.
- D: A volume spike on a fast drop. Spikes often appear around news, stop clusters or session opens.
None of this tells you what the next bar will do. Volume describes activity. It does not show direction.
Typical uses
- Checking whether breakouts happen on rising or fading activity.
- Comparing activity across sessions on currency pairs.
- Supporting divergence reading, where the price makes a new extreme on lower volume.
- Feeding volume-based tools such as On-Balance Volume, Money Flow Index or VWAP.
Where it misleads
- Feed differences. Each broker's feed produces different tick counts, so the same bar can show different volume on different platforms.
- Session rhythm. Volume rises at session opens and falls in the late hours every day. A "spike" may just be the normal open. Compare like-for-like hours.
- News. Releases create bursts of ticks that can reverse within minutes.
- Low-activity periods. Holidays and rollover hours give thin, unreliable readings.
- Timeframe. On very low timeframes, tick counts are noisy. On higher timeframes, detail is averaged away.
- Ticks are not size. Many small updates count the same as a few large trades. Tick volume cannot tell you who traded or how much.
Leveraged forex and CFD trading can lose money fast. No volume reading removes that risk. See risk management and practise on a demo account before relying on any indicator.
Notes for experienced traders
- Tick volume usually tracks real futures volume in direction, but not in exact size. Treat it as a relative measure within the same feed.
- Normalise by time of day if you use thresholds. A plain moving average mixes active and quiet sessions.
- For level-based analysis, look at volume profile on instruments where your platform supplies it.
- In MT5, "Real" volume on OTC symbols may show nothing or zero. Check what the symbol actually provides.
Frequent questions
Is tick volume the same as real volume?
No. Tick volume counts price updates. Real volume counts traded contracts on an exchange. Forex OTC charts show tick volume.
Does the volume indicator have default settings?
The MetaTrader Volumes indicator has no period. You only choose the volume type (in MT5) and the colours.
What does a green or red volume bar mean?
By default, the colour only compares the bar with the previous bar's volume. It does not show price direction.
Can volume predict price direction?
No. It describes how active the market was. Direction has to come from other analysis, and even then nothing is certain.
Why does my volume differ from another platform's?
Tick counts depend on each provider's price feed, so the numbers differ between brokers and platforms.