do volume indicators mean anything in forex with no central exchange

[Arthur]

in stocks volume is real, every share trades through an exchange. in forex theres no central exchange so what is my platform even showing me when it plots 'volume'? is it tick volume, is it useless, or is there a sensible way to use it?

[carterw]

what your forex platform shows is tick volume, the number of price changes in a period, not actual contracts traded. it correlates reasonably well with real activity because more participants means more ticks, but its your brokers feed only, not the whole market. treat it as a rough activity gauge, not true volume.

[silvercloud]

the practical use is relative, not absolute. a tick-volume spike at a level tells you participation jumped there, which is meaningful for spotting where interest sits. comparing your brokers tick volume to another brokers absolute number is meaningless though, theyll differ.

[justmatt]

people build entire 'volume profile' strategies on a number that is literally just how often one broker updated its price feed. the confidence is inversely proportional to what the data actually represents.

[thomas_x]

tick volume is more useful than the troll implies but less than the volume-profile evangelists claim. i use it for one thing: confirming that a breakout had participation behind it rather than drifting through a quiet level. low tick volume on a breakout is a yellow flag for me. thats the whole edge i get from it.

[simpleguy]

is futures volume from something like the EUR futures a better proxy for real forex volume then?

[darkhorizon]

yes, currency futures trade on a centralised exchange so their volume is real and many traders watch it as a proxy for spot interest. its not a perfect mapping but its genuine contract volume rather than tick counts. if volume matters to your approach, that feed is more trustworthy than spot tick volume.

[asherwood]

good point on futures. for most retail traders though, the honest answer is volume is a minor supporting signal in forex, not a primary one. dont build the house on it. use it to confirm, never to lead.

[Adam]

tick volume = activity proxy, not real volume. got it.