What a volume spike tells you
A volume spike is a day when far more shares change hands than usual. Here it means at least three times the average of the previous 20 days.
What it measures
Volume is the number of shares traded in a day. A spike means unusual interest: news, results, a large buyer or seller, or a move that drew attention.
How it is calculated
Average the volume of the previous 20 trading days. A day with at least three times that average is counted as a spike.
What happened next, in Indian stocks
These figures come from Sensifty’s monthly research and load here.
Why direction matters more than size
A spike on a rising day and a spike on a falling day are different events, and both are counted here. In our tests of stretched stocks, runs that came with heavy volume over several weeks went on to deeper falls than quiet runs. A single day of heavy trading says less.
What it does not tell you
Who was buying or selling, or why. Volume shows that interest changed, not what the interest means.
Related
Sensifty measures each of your stocks against its own history, and tells you once when a stretch cools off. Add to Chrome
Figures describe the past, among the 500 most traded NSE stocks at each date. They are not a forecast or a recommendation.