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Volume Is A Trader's Best Friend - Volume is a trader's best friend. Few technical indicators give the experienced trader a better feel for the minds of his fellow traders and investors. The heights of their greed, the depths of their fear, the loudness of their panic, and quietude of their ambivalence. All of these emotional states are seen with volume.

Volume also shows us the footprints of big money, and unlike footprints in the sand, these footprints are there for all to see...and long after the fact. More immediate and less ambiguous than any complex indicator, volume pinpoints extreme tops and bottoms -or the areas of them- with amazing accuracy.

Intraday volume helps see where a stock is being repeatedly bought as it dips. Likewise, towards the end of a rally, a wide volume surge often signals that the move is at an end, at least short-term. If you weren't aware of it before, I hope you're starting to see why volume is a trader's best friend.

Additionally, unlike many indicators, volume is applicable to every timeframe. How can this be? Simple. Volume is simply a measure of sentiment, of human nature. And fortunately for us, human nature is the one ever-present constant of the stock market. Never forget that fact. Once you have your own emotions under control as a trader, knowledge of this profound fact will guide you ever after as reliably as the Northern Star guides a lone sailor across a vast sea. Now you should really be starting to see why volume is a trader's best friend.

MarketVolume® has created volume moving averages (VMA) for all of it's indicators, which range from a period of 5-minutes to 60-days. These VMAs are used to smooth out volume surges so that you can see volume as a trend and not just random surges.

Below is a list of recommended VMA settings for every period in our charts. We recommend these settings because they tend to work the best in showing signals of future market trends.

Recommended VMA settings

Period SBV VMA Period Fast VMA Slow VMA 1 bar value Intraday Indicators  2-Hour Period 1-20 bars 1-20 bars 40-100 bars 1 minute  1-Day Period 5-30 bars 5-30 bars 60-100 bars 1 minute Short-Term Indicators  5-Day Period 7-25 bars  7-25 bars 70-200 bars 5 minutes  15-Day Period 7-25 bars 7-25 bars 70-200 bars 15 minutes  30-Day Period 7-25 bars 7-25 bars 70-200 bars 30 minutes  60-Day Period 7-25 bars 7-25 bars 70-200 bars 1 hour Mid-Term Indicators  3-Months Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 1 day  6-Months Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 1 day  1-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 1 day  1.5-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 1 day  2-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 2 days Long-Term Indicators  3-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 3 days  4-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 3 days  5-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 5 days  7-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 7 days  10-Year Period 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 10 days  Weekly 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 1 week  Monthly 3-8 bars 3-8 bars 40-80 bars 1 month