Relative volume: what it was followed by
What an extreme relative volume reading was historically followed by, measured across the stocks this site covers.
What an extreme relative volume reading was historically followed by, measured across the stocks this site covers.
How to read this. These figures are measured only on instruments currently covered by this site — a set of companies that survived. Signals that appear to have ‘worked’ on the downside are conditioned on these names having recovered; a company that fell and never came back would not be here to measure. Read every number below as a property of this surviving sample, not a universal rule, and never as advice.
All figures are ‘excess’ returns — measured relative to each instrument’s own historical drift, not relative to the market. This is not alpha and not a market-beating claim; it isolates the signal from the instrument’s background trend. Measured from the first day each signal appeared (not its most extreme point), so it reflects what was knowable in real time.
Relative volume showed no measurable forward signal. Across the full sample, episodes on this measure were followed by returns statistically indistinguishable from each instrument’s own drift — this is reported as a null result rather than left out.
Overbought / high extreme
Across 10704 past episodes where a stock was at a high extreme on this signal, the 10694 with a complete 20-session forward window lagged the stock’s own trailing drift by 0.06 percentage points on average (48% of those 10694 beat drift).
| horizon | excess vs own drift | beat-drift rate | episodes with a complete horizon |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 session | >-0.01% | 45% | 10704 |
| 5 sessions | +0.02% | 48% | 10699 |
| 20 sessions | -0.06% | 48% | 10694 |
Oversold / low extreme
Across 5910 past episodes where a stock was at a low extreme on this signal, the 5907 with a complete 20-session forward window lagged the stock’s own trailing drift by 0.18 percentage points on average (48% of those 5907 beat drift).
| horizon | excess vs own drift | beat-drift rate | episodes with a complete horizon |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 session | -0.11% | 43% | 5910 |
| 5 sessions | -0.09% | 47% | 5908 |
| 20 sessions | -0.18% | 48% | 5907 |
By instrument
Each instrument’s own history on this signal (where it has enough episodes to characterise):