Volume and Open Interest (VolOI)

Either the Tick Volume or Actual Volume will appear when Volume & Open Interest is requested.

Tick Volume

Tick Volume is available for most charts and appears when the Actual Volume is not available. Tick Volume represents the number of inside price changes, i.e. the count of how many times a last price has been changed over a time period.

Actual Volume

The study automatically reports Actual Volume, instead of Tick Volume, when Actual Volume is available. Actual Volume represents the Total Volume for all currently traded contracts, not the Contract Specific Volume. Actual Total Volume is updated automatically when the volume information becomes available from the exchanges. The exchanges transmit volume information at different times.

Open Interest

Open Interest displays the number of contracts that are not closed or delivered for a given day. The Open Interest that appears is the Total Open Interest for all currently traded contracts, not the Contract Specific Open Interest. Open Interest is updated when the volume and open interest information becomes available from the exchanges. Exchanges transmit volume and open interest information at different times.

Interpretation

Volume is used as a qualifier when interpreting patterns and other technical indicators. High volume events give more importance to underlying activity. Divergences between price action and volume are often used to predict future price activity. Volume is useful in identifying tops and bottoms of trends. An uptrend that shows volume trending lower may predict its conclusion while a downtrend with waning volume and high volume event(s) may predict a reversal. In the chart above during the uptrend Open Interest is declining predicting the end of the trend.

Volume and Open Interest Parameters

This study has three separate settings: volume type, OI type, and tick volume type. If, for example, you want VolOI to display contract OI and contract volume you have to change both volume type and OI type parameters.