No, indeed ... I don't think anyone's suggesting that, though, are they? I'm certainly not, anyway: I traded successfully for years before I really "discovered" volume, and I used to trade spot forex originally, which doesn't even have volume available (apart from the broker's own volume, which is useless nonsense, and the corresponding futures' volumes, I suppose, in the limited cases where there are "corresponding futures".) But observing that people can "get it right" without volume is surely a long way from believing that "volume can't be helpful" or not acknowledging that volume "might be helpful" (which was the statement that surprised me)?
We'll see who responds to my challenge. The questions to be answered... (1) "Is volume helpful in improving overall trading results.. i.e. making more good trades and avoiding some losers, (2) is volume consideration non-conclusive/ineffective and a waste of time, and (3) does volume consideration actually hinder success by resulting in more missed profitable trades"?
1. Without a doubt. The importance of volume in making a proper analysis goes all the way back to The Dow Theory. In the case of manipulated stocks, it is of utmost importance. 2. No, no, and again,no!! 3.See no.2
You may be right about that, but the OP's original question was about "the market in general"... i.e. "stock index futures".
To some extent, perhaps ... but we'll inevitably be dealing with a tiny group. (I suspect there must surely be several others, here, in the same position as me: not allowed to show our empoyers' charts to anyone online, according to our NDA's?). My own original experience with volume was that I switched from trading EUR/USD and GBP/USD to trading Euro and Pound futures: I traded in exactly the same ways, doing exactly the same things as I had previously, but basing all the trade-entry decisions from constant-volume bars instead of from constant-time bars, with a statistically significant improvement in my results, with both instruments, over each month of the first 6-month period (during which I ran both sets of charts side-by-side). That was good enough for me. It was, to me. It isn't, for me. It doesn't, for me. But none of that is actually helpful to you because of course it's anecdotal and unevidenced: you have to exclude me from your research anyway, because I'm both unwilling and unable to prove it (either in public or in private).
Oh sure... weasel out! With your being an institutional, I wasn't expecting input from you. I don't really expect anybody to respond... mostly because it's more trouble than it's worth. But we'll see.
Right, but I just mentioned stocks for the sake of it. More strongly than I said in my first post, the climatic volume in index futures is extremely valuable. But again, I'm talking about the Nikkei. However, as I remember, years ago when I examined ES, I found that the same held true.
Markets make highs/lows on both high and low volume.... and ever measure between. Anything you think you get "exclusively" from volume, you should have already seen in price. It's conventional wisdom that "volume leads price" (it doesn't for the general market), but I can see how some might think that. As I've said before, I'm a K.I.S.S. trader. Volume considerations merely muddy-up trade decisions.