Volume spread analysis is a school of thought that believes volume plays a crucial role in understanding moves of prices in financial markets. This text will highlight 5 core arguments that solidify this basic premise.
Volume Spread Analysis
1- Technical analysis is not enough.
An argument in favor of technical analysis is the idea that the securities’ prices may not be linked to their fundamentals. The behavior of financial markets is frequently a result of momentum, confidence, and sentiment. In this sense, traders analyze security price chart to know what is the upside and downside potential.
However, reading the market solely from prices is insufficient. Markets move on supply and demand, and so, volumes are also an important part of the equation.
Volume Spread Analysis is a good way to understand how the concepts of supply and demand influence prices. It allows spotting imbalances between buyers and sellers by looking at prices and volumes.
VSA helps traders understand what the major players are doing and benefit from their actions. When a small trader buys or sells a pair, he/she certainly will not influence the price. However, when a big bank trades millions of a certain currency, this will probably move the market up or down. Usually, these big traders have more information and knowledge about the markets, so it is wise to be on their side. Through volume analysis, traders can know if market makers are buying or selling and take advantage of their positions.
2- It’s all about perceived value.
Fundamental analysis states that we can always grasp the intrinsic value of a financial instrument – stocks, currencies, commodities, etc. An assessment of the economy would allow traders to explain oscillations in prices.
On the contrary, volume-based traders say that to fully know what goes on in the markets, we should rely on perceived values instead of intrinsic value. And what does perceived value mean? This is how different professional traders view a financial instrument. And this is always contextual and acquired through an analysis of volume.
Below you can find the evolution of the price to book value since 2000 of the S&P 500. This metric is considered an approximation of the perceived value. It’s possible to see how traders permanently evaluate companies above their book value, taking in mind other analysis besides the fundamental one.
3- Price and volume are inter-related.
Past prices are an important aspect to understand moves in financial markets. However, the analysis of price is not enough.
A lot of technical analysis theories say we can solely rely on the analysis of price to understand the next move. These can take the form of different theories: Dow theory, Elliot wave theory, harmonic theory, candle-based trade, etc. The bottom line for all these traders is that everything is reflected in prices and different patterns.
Volume spread analysts say that the analysis of price is incomplete. We need to understand where the money is and where it will be in the future. Only then we can try to predict what is going to happen in the markets.
4- The cause of moves is volume.
We already dismissed fundamental and technical analysis as the sole explanations for moves in financial markets. Now, let’s look at how volume spread analysts justify these moves.
In their opinion, we need to look at prices in relation to volume. It is only this interconnection between price action and volume that justifies moves in financial markets.
In the chart below you can observe how major moves in prices or price reversions were always accompanied by volumes higher than normal. An analysis of volume in this situation would help traders identify these movements of prices.
Relation between price movements and higher trading volumes
5 – It’s all about understanding the role of different traders in the market.
The 5th core idea is that different kinds of traders carry different sorts of information – and we can base our trading strategy on this idea.
Volume spread analysis tends to emphasize three different types of traders: retail, commercial and professional. Retail traders are those who have small accounts and tend to trade erratically. They do not have any particular trading strategy and traditionally tend to buy and sell when the uptrend/downtrend is exhausted.
Commercial traders are investment banks whose function is to place orders in the market to satisfy clients’ needs. They can also function as market makers. These traders have an impact because they often carry large orders, which usually cause volatility. However, they don’t have any strong rationale supporting their trading decisions.
Professional traders are large traders that are in the game to win, and they are behind most trends. These are the types of traders that volume spread analysis tends to be concerned with – the successful volume trader is the one that detects what these traders are doing.
The following chart illustrates the power of large traders in moving the markets. On the left side, large traders reduced their positions, which caused a downside movement in prices. Prices traded sideways while these traders had stable positions and, when they started buying, prices moved upside. A small trader aware of what large traders were doing could follow their steps and take advantage of this information.
COT Report Large Traders
Daily
For the past months, Euro/Yen has seen buying between 121.00 – 124.50, shown by the multiple strong signals at this area, and the high volumes at the bottom. It’s a quite loose accumulation pattern, since the market made a lower low at mid April (point 2) than the first bottom at February/2016 (point 1), along with the very significant selling seen on the lower timeframes, on the last rally (point 3). There is also a down trendline nearby, and due to these reasons, I’d be more inclined to trade a break-out of it on a lower timeframe such as H4, where it’ll be easier to manage the trade for a faster exit.
4 Hours
In the 4-hours timeframe, in point 1 VSA marked the bar as Major Supply, and as Supply using multi-timeframe analysis (showing as a circle). In this lower timeframe the most recent buying can be more easily seen, starting in point 2, where the arrows are pointing. Those are either high volume bars (red painted bars), which after a strong fall and price congestion, show demand in a more ‘disguised’ way than the VSA signals, and 2 VSA Demand signals. In point 3 there is another Demand signal, which is also a churn.
It’ll be valuable to see if there is a break-out of the trendline for a long trade, and to be alert for supply signals in the zone of previous supply, painted as the red rectangle. At 24/May (Tuesday) German ZEW Economic Sentiment is being announced, which if positive, could provide a price boost towards 124.670.
In this trade a long was taken at the strong VSA signal, though there was distribution behind. This is seen by the multiple Major Supply signals, with the prices not advancing further. A bit after, there was an upthrust bar (pink bar), showing more supply, and a successful no-demand test (light pink bar).
In the entry point there was some buying, though it wasn’t enough to stop the trend. The buy-stop should also have been set above this bar’s high (https://www.analyticaltrader.com/trading-guide/vsa-trading-setups/trend-trading/supplydemand-background/), which comes as a price confirmation of strength.
After breaking the down trendline mentioned in our latest analysis post, AUDJPY started a healthy uptrend. On the 80.500-80.600 level high volume without any price progress was seen, and on a news event it went down on a wide range, in the 15 minutes timeframe. On a reaction to this down move, while the background was weak, a down reversal appeared (on sensitivity 4, which has the best Rating on this pair/timeframe), where the short was taken. A Minor Supply Signal confirmed the weakness on this reaction. The stop-loss was set above the previous high, and the take-profit near the up trendline, for a +29 pips move.
USDJPY
On the last post I noted that USDJPY was on a trading range, and the closest zone to watch was between 106.200 – 106.300. Prices reached that zone on the Asian session, and did so on wide high volume bars, breaking-out 106.200 to the downside, which also made the background turn to weak. The price was still sustained for a few hours after demand, but a few hours before London’s open, the activity spiked up again and more selling showed up again as a wide-range down bar, closing on its lows. These lower prices didn’t held up for long though, and after one more demand signal from VSA, the prices broke a down trendline and kept the uptrend until heavy supply hit the market and turned it sideways, onto the trading range we are seeing at the present. USDJPY is also getting to the break-out point of 107.600 support, which is important because that is the last point where many sellers got in. I would like to see a small rally after this downtrend, or the background turning weak, to consider taking short positions. Any position will have to be taken at most at tomorrow’s London session and in a low timeframe, as NFP is on Friday.
AUDJPY
This pair is near a support, at 79.527, and near a down trendline now at 80.100. Yesterday we have seen more demand above the formed support, though the rally after it failed spectacularly after there was no follow-up to the very high volume candle, with VSA showing a minor Supply signal 2 bars afterwards. The correction is showing low volumes, hinting at a temporary lack of supply, and the background is very strong. Reversals at sensitivity 7 have a good record on this pair and timeframe, even weeks back, and one near the support would be a possible long entry point. The safest would be to wait for the trendline break though, for confirmation. Meanwhile the prices are reaching the demand zone and it’s also important to be on the look-out for selling in the form of wide high volume down bars, like was seen on USDJPY yesterday on a similar occasion. Together with USDJPY, if the price/development confirms it, they could be two good pairs to trade against each other (one long and one short), since they are positively correlated by 50% due to the Yen.
