Volume: The Market's Truth Serum

Anyone can nudge a stock's price with a small order. Nobody can fake participation. That's why volume — the number of shares changing hands — is the honesty check behind every price move.

The basic grammar

• Price up + volume up — real demand. Institutions leave footprints; this is what they look like.
• Price up + volume thin — a rally on tiptoes. Possibly a few optimists bidding up an empty order book. Distrust it.
• Price down + volume heavy — genuine distribution. Someone large is leaving.
• Price down + volume thin — apathy, not panic. Often just drift — and where bottoms quietly form.

Breakouts live or die by volume

A stock pushing through resistance on 1.5–2× its average volume has conviction behind it; the same push on average volume fails far more often. This is why our Breakout with Volume scanner refuses to flag a new high unless volume confirms, and why every technical score includes a volume check. In our signal metadata you'll see it as "volume_ratio: 2.1" — 2.1× the 20-day average.

Liquidity: volume's other job

Average volume also answers a mundane but vital question: *can you get out?* A stock trading ₹40,000 of shares a day will trap you — your own sell order becomes the crash. Our risk score explicitly rewards healthy daily turnover, and the sector Levels tab shows 30-day average volume for every stock. As a rule, retail investors should want their intended position to be a tiny fraction of a day's typical volume.

Read price for the story, volume for whether to believe it.