Relative volume: is anyone actually trading this?

Relative volume is today's volume divided by the average volume of the last 20 trading days. A reading of 1.0 means a completely ordinary day. 2.0 means twice the usual participation; 0.5 means half.

It is deliberately crude. There is no smoothing, no adjustment for time of day, no comparison against the same weekday. It answers one question: is today unusual?

A volume spike on its own says nothing about direction — heavy trade accompanies both panics and breakouts. It only becomes a directional signal when paired with what price did on that same heavy day.

So this site requires both conditions together: a ratio of at least 1.5 and a price move, and it takes the sign from the price move. Heavy volume on an up day is mild confirmation that the move has real participation behind it; heavy volume on a down day is the reverse.

Below the 1.5 threshold the indicator returns zero regardless of what price did. That is the honest reading: typical volume is the default state and contains no information worth scoring.

The result is that relative volume contributes nothing at all on most days for most stocks, which is the intended behaviour rather than a gap.