Oil Crumbles, Cable Reverses and the Dollar Continues with Bullish Structure.

XE - Currency Trading and Forex Tips

GBP Reacts to CB Talk as the Queen Speaks. USD Waits for Fed Speakers; NZD Vulnerable to RBNZ. Gold, USD Strong Inverse Correlation and in Confluence.

Best Accurate Forex Signals. Free Forex Trading Signal with AvaTrade

FTSE Further Develops Range on Sharp Turn Lower. Dow Jones Industrial Average Struggles to Hold the Gap Higher. For traders coming from other markets, you know the importance volume has when making trading decisions.

But for years, volume has been more or less rejected by Forex traders because it has been so hard to come by. There is no central exchange for currency transactions, so there is no perfect way to measure the amount of volume actually being traded. But with FXCM's Real Volume indicator, we can now get a sense of the amount of trading volume that is occurring on all major pairs.

This is great for Forex traders, because we can now add volume analysis to our trading arsenal. In this article, we will learn 3 ways we can use volume in 3 different types of trading situations. One of the greatest fears for breakout traders is encountering a false breakout. This is when price breaks a major support or resistance level, but then crosses back to its original side.

To mitigate falling for a false break, traders often wait until the current candle actually closes beyond the support or resistance level before placing a trade. This is a good technique. But another way we can confirm a breakout is by using volume. During a breakout, it is common to see a spike in volume.

An increase in volume represents a larger amount of participants that "agree" with the breakout that is occurring and can actually act as confirmation that price could continue to move in the direction of the breakout.

For an in-depth discussion on using volume to confirm breakouts, I recommend reading my previous article. But for a quick example, I have copied the chart we see below. Volume Steady During False Breaks, Spikes During Real Breaks. Created using Marketscope 2.

Volume indicator | Forex Indicators Guide

The 3 horizontal lines represent support and resistance levels that have been drawn based on swing highs and swing lows, and the red and green boxes represent times when price broke through those levels.

However, not all of these breakouts had price follow through. Some of them were false breakouts. We can see that the two breakouts that could have resulted in great breakout trades, occurred when volume was dramatically higher than the candles around them. If we only trade breakouts when volume is elevated, this could increase our likelihood of finding better opportunities.

Our next use for volume is valuable for traders that trade trend strategies. I already mentioned earlier how an increase of volume means there are a greater number of market participants in agreement about the price movement it coincides with. The same applies when market begins trending in a primary direction. During a strong trend, we commonly see volume increase when price is moving in the direction of the trend, and volume decrease when price is moving counter to the trend.

When this occurs, it can act as a signal to traders that the trend is more likely to continue. The greater the disparity in volume during trend and countertrend moves, the stronger the trend.

In a previous article , I go more in depth into looking for these opportunities and I've pictured one of these opportunities below.

Volume Increasing with Trend, Decreasing When Countertrend. We can see that each time price is moving up in the direction of the trend , volume is increasing, and when price is moving dow n countertrend , volume is decreasing.

If we find this on our own charts, we should feel more confident placing trades that are in the direction of the trend until we see increased volume during a countertrend move or breakout.

The final situation when volume can be helpful is during potential reversals. Playing off the previous chart when we had a strong trend, trends will not last forever. At some point, trends will always reverse. But timing a reversal can be very difficult and very costly when we are wrong. The way that volume can be used to assist us in identifying reversals, is by looking for times when volume is decreasing at the same time that the trend is beginning to stall.

Volume Decreases While Priced Tested Resistance, Then Reversed. In the chart above, we see an uptrend in a stalling pattern where price is not able to break to a new high. During this sideways movement, volume begins to dip lower and lower which could indicate that traders are uncertain that the uptrend will continue.

As soon as we see price break to a new swing low, we see volume sky rocket, confirming the reversal. For more information on using volume to identify reversals, click here. Interested in learning more about Forex trading and strategy development? Signup for a series of free guides, to help you get up to speed on a variety of trading topics! DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets. Market News Headlines getFormatDate 'Wed Jun 21 GBP Reacts to CB Talk as the Queen Speaks getFormatDate 'Wed Jun 21 Technical Analysis Headlines getFormatDate 'Wed Jun 21 Gold, USD Strong Inverse Correlation and in Confluence getFormatDate 'Wed Jun 21 Education Beginner Intermediate Advanced Expert Free Trading Guides.

Click here to dismiss. Get Your Free Trading Guides With your broad range of free expert guides, you'll explore: News getFormatDate 'Wed Jun 21 News getFormatDate 'Tue Jun 20 Using volume to confirm breakouts Using volume to confirm trends Using volume to identify reversals. Trading Ranges getFormatDate 'Tue Oct 21 Upcoming Events Economic Event.

Forex Economic Calendar A: NEWS Articles Real Time News Daily Briefings Forecasts DailyFX Authors. CALENDAR Economic Calendar Webinar Calendar Central Bank Rates Dividend Calendar.

EDUCATION Forex Trading University Trading Guide. DAILYFX PLUS RATES CHARTS RSS. DailyFX is the news and education website of IG Group.