I mainly invest in stocks. There is no such thing as open interest in stocks. Open interest is a new concept to me. In futures trading, do the elite traders here place more emphasis on open interest or volume? If open interest is more important, is volume a distraction which can be ignored?
May I ask why do you think volume is more important than OpenInterest when interpreting futures price charts?
I only trade small quantities and on very liquid products, so I don't care about open interest. I do pay attention to the daily volumes by the time I need to roll from a soon-to-expire contract to a next one. The timing of the rollover is (partly) influenced by daily trade volume.
[ Partial QUOTE="helpme_please, post: 4489433, member: 482598"]I mainly invest in stocks. There is no such thing as open interest in stocks. Open interest is a new concept to me. In futures trading, do the elite traders here place more emphasis on volume? ..... is volume a distraction which can be ignored?[/QUOTE] %% YES, on volume; +no dont ignore volume. For example if you got no volume on a liquid contract -you would know most likely, we just got bad data, LOL. Saved the best till last; price is way >> more important than volume,or open interest + use price + volume both. Like the CME website notes, taxes too, effect price trends; but i dont have time to go into all the little details. A liquid contract is the context of my remarks, Help Me Please. Good question; answer is in context of a liquid contract; big volume stocks +ETFs maybe more liquid....
A truer answer to this question may require an expansion on what your plans are for trading futures. I reckon OI and volume have their places among any number of trading strategies. One may not be mutually-exclusive to the other. Expound upon your ideas and you might find clearer guidelines from the folks here.