True meaning of volume.

New comment
 

I am interested if anyone know what is true meaning of volume available in metatrader.

Is it number of contracts traded in given time period?

Is the data provided from local broker data or is it provided from external sources and it represents total number of traded contracts on the market?

How is it calculated if as far as I know all major exchanges do not provide data on tick volume but just daily volume?

If I open 1 lot buy contract and in the same time another market player opens sell contract how it will affect volume?

And what happens to volume if I open 1 buy contract and in the same time nobody is selling?


So far I did not used volume information in my trading to much. But if I only could understand it better it could be much more usefull.
If you know answers for at least some of above questions please provide information.


Thanks in advance,


Mark

 

"Is it number of contracts traded in given time period?"

no

"Is the data provided from local broker data or is it provided from external sources and it represents total number of traded contracts on the market?"

Your dealer. Volume is "tick count", which is "changes in items you can find using MarketInfo()" --- https://docs.mql4.com/constants/marketinfo

"If I open 1 lot buy contract and in the same time another market player opens sell contract how it will affect volume?"

No effect.

"And what happens to volume if I open 1 buy contract and in the same time nobody is selling?"

No effect

 
Volume is the number of price changes during the period?
 

generally, Volume is the price change times during a period inside the company's market you open account.

 

So, if BY CHANCE in a given day eur/usd remained CONSTANT at 1.4004 / 1.4002 during the whole 24 hours, then although there was traded contracts, volume indication in terminal would be ZERO, because it only accounts for price changes (or ticks), isn't it?


Another question:

Does anybody knows where can we get a free access to open interest (volume) data, which we could grab to feed into terminal (e.g. in a custom indicator) ?


thanks.

 
abstract_mind:

Does anybody knows where can we get a free access to open interest (volume) data, which we could grab to feed into terminal (e.g. in a custom indicator) ?

Tricky. Spot forex is an OTC market, not an exchange-traded one, and meaningful volume figures are difficult to come by. Depending on what you think the volume tells you, you might be best off getting the data for the equivalent futures contract.

 
jjc:

Tricky. Spot forex is an OTC market, not an exchange-traded one, and meaningful volume figures are difficult to come by. Depending on what you think the volume tells you, you might be best off getting the data for the equivalent futures contract.

Well, I knew that, but again:

Volume (in MetaTrader) is the number of price changes during a period???


So then, what about indicators including volume, like OBV? If Volume here is not the trade volume but just the number of price changes, then these indicator's meanings would something completely different!

 
schnappi:

Well, I knew that, but again: [..]

Well, if you know that, then you also know that the difficulty in getting OBV is the same as the difficulty in getting any other sort of volume data...

 

...in OTC markets, yes.


What a pity.

I thought I'd already know everything in this world...

 

Thanks guys for explaining.


However I am now disappointed. So far I have thought that this metatrader volume has something to do with real volume but now it appears to me that it is useless junk. Anyway it is better to know this.

 

yes, that is the difference with other stock market.

in Forex market, Volume no important meaning, since this is a distributed market, no centre market, so one company only have its own volume.

12
New comment
Reason: