How to Trade with the Forex Volume Indicator

Have you heard of trend health in trading? Why is it important? This article explains why trend health is an important aspect of trading that professional traders must follow. We explore the Forex Volumes Indicator found on both MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5), discuss how to trade with and read the volumes indicator and much more!

How Can We Use Volume?

For traders in the stock market, looking at volume is as common as looking at price. Volume can reveal useful information that you can't get from price alone.

For example, larger volumes suggest higher levels of interest and a greater number of participants. Much like momentum, this can help you understand how much strength is behind a price move.

Similarly, low trading volumes tend to suggest fewer participants and lower levels of interest in the instrument in question. Low volumes may, therefore, reveal weakness in a price move.

So, you can see the value in taking the trouble to look at trading volumes. These ideas are some of the basic building blocks of a volume indicator trading strategy.

Finding Volume With an Indicator

With stocks, the data is easy to come by — stocks are exchange traded, and every time a trade goes through, it is reported and published for all to see.

However, there's a catch when it comes to getting hold of this data for Forex. The decentralised, 'Over-The-Counter' (OTC) nature of the Forex markets means that a precise overview of such information is unavailable.

The large banks that make up the interbank market at the core of global FX trading tend to closely guard their own trading volumes as proprietary information — and even they will not be privy to the overall picture.

So what can we do if we want to use volume to trade?

Since we cannot use actual volume figures for Forex trades, we need to use a proxy for volume instead. The number of ticks within a bar is the yardstick that is conventionally used to assign a value for Forex volume.

So really, volume-based indicators for Forex should be more properly referred to as ' tick volume indicators'. As you can imagine, trying to count the number of ticks occurring within each bar would be a nightmare as a manual task.

The good news is that with all the free-to-use, high-quality trading software available to us, we don't have to calculate anything manually. Even better, there is a MetaTrader volume indicator that comes as part of both MT4 and MT5's standard indicator package. So let's take a look at the tick volume indicator.

Use the Volumes Indicator With MetaTrader 5

The MetaTrader Volumes indicator is one of the best and most popular tick volume indicators available for Forex trading. Fortunately, this indicator is included in the FREE download of MetaTrader 5, one of the most popular and reputable Forex trading platforms available.

At Admirals, we offer traders the number 1 multi-asset trading platform in the world completely FREE. In addition to the MetaTrader Volumes indicator, traders can also take advantage of superior charting capabilities, free real-time market data & analysis, the best trading widgets available and much more.

You can download your free MetaTrader 5 platform today by clicking the banner below:

The MetaTrader Volumes Indicator

You will find that the standard indicators that come with the MetaTrader trading platforms are broadly divided into four categories in the platform. These are:

1. Oscillators (e.g. the Stochastic Oscillator)
2. Trends
3. Volumes
4. Bill Williams

Naturally, it's the 'Volumes' folder in the navigator that we are interested in:

Source: Admirals MetaTrader 5 - Volumes Folder

As you can see from the above image, there is more than one volume indicator available in this folder. The 'Volumes' indicator is the one we want, as it purely concerns itself with tick volume. The others utilise volume as part of their calculations. But if we are solely focused on volume, then the best volume indicator is the one selected in the image.

The indicator could not be more simple to use. When you launch it, there are no variables to set; simply click 'OK' and the Forex volume indicator appears as a separate chart beneath your main one. In the image below, we have applied the volumes indicator to an hourly GBPUSD chart as an example:

Depicted: Admirals MetaTrader 5 - GBPUSD Hourly Chart. Date Range: June 7, 2021, to June 11, 2021. Disclaimer: Charts for financial instruments in this article are for illustrative purposes and does not constitute trading advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument provided by Admirals (CFDs, ETFs, Shares). Past performance is not necessarily an indication of future performance.

As the image shows, the Forex volumes indicator in MT4 uses two colours. A green bar indicates that the volume was greater for that candle than the volume of the previous one. Conversely, a red bar indicates a lower volume compared with the previous candle. If you prefer other colours, you can easily configure the bars to colours of your choosing, by adjusting the parameters of the indicator.

Trading With the Forex Volume Indicator

Volume can help reveal how much strength is behind a trend. Volume trading is, therefore, fairly similar to momentum trading.

If volumes remain high (or increase) as prices move in the direction of the trend, we can infer that the trend is in good health.

If volumes decrease as the price continues in the direction of the trend, this suggests that the trend is running out of steam. In such a case, a volume trader might expect the trend to break down sometime soon, and may position their account accordingly.

So, we can use the volumes indicator to perform a kind of validation check on price moves. If volumes are high amidst a trend, these moves would appear to be sustainable. If volumes are low, we should be sceptical about such a move and suspect it may be susceptible to a reversal.

Consider the downward move between the two dotted lines in the hourly GBPUSD chart example featured below:

Depicted: Admirals MetaTrader 5 - GBPUSD Hourly Chart. Date Range: June 7, 2021, to June 11, 2021. Disclaimer: Charts for financial instruments in this article are for illustrative purposes and does not constitute trading advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument provided by Admirals (CFDs, ETFs, Shares). Past performance is not necessarily an indication of future performance.

Notice how the volume is not increasing as this move progresses? Instead, we are seeing plenty of red bars and the volume eases off as the price drops. This would provide little confidence to traders in terms of this being a sustainable downward move. If we look further on, we can see that the price did indeed subsequently recover thereafter:

Depicted: Admirals MetaTrader 5 - GBPUSD Hourly Chart. Date Range: June 7, 2021, to June 11, 2021. Disclaimer: Charts for financial instruments in this article are for illustrative purposes and does not constitute trading advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument provided by Admirals (CFDs, ETFs, Shares). Past performance is not necessarily an indication of future performance.

Does it Actually Work?

In answering this question, it is important to bear in mind one of the earlier points from this article. Namely, that the indicator does not truly represent actual volumes of trades in the market. Even with this caveat, however, there are reasons to believe it to be a sensible yardstick by which to measure.

For example, over key news releases, where we would expect volumes to be higher, the volumes indicator consistently reflects such behaviour. Furthermore, the self-fulfilling nature of technical analysis also lends credence to this method. A sufficiently large number of people look at these values regularly and put stock in what they are saying as to influence market behaviour.

Final Words

As we have seen, Forex volume indicators do not concern themselves with price levels at all. They look at the number of ticks in a bar.

Because so many other indicators do look at price, it is easy to find a complementary indicator — one that has a sufficiently different methodology, to avoid looking at the same aspect of the market twice over.

We hope this has been a useful rundown of the MetaTrader volumes indicator, and we hope that it helps you on your way to a fruitful trading experience.

Open Your Live Account Now

If you are feeling ready to try out this indicator on the live market, a Trade.MT5 account from Admirals is the perfect place to do so! Trade Forex 24 hours a day, 5 days a week using the world renowned MetaTrader 5! Click the banner below to register for an account today:

About Admirals

Admirals is a multi-award winning, globally regulated Forex and CFD broker, offering trading on over 8,000 financial instruments via the world's most popular trading platforms: MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. Start trading today!

This material does not contain and should not be construed as containing investment advice, investment recommendations, an offer of, or recommendation for, any transactions in financial instruments. Please note that such trading analysis is not a reliable indicator for any current or future performance, as circumstances may change over time. Before making any investment decisions, you should seek advice from independent financial advisors to ensure you understand the risks.