NEVER truncate your Volume indicator

Tasuki

Martha Stokes recently posted an article on the importance of analyzing volume. She said, "NEVER truncate your Volume indicator". What the heck does that mean? To "truncate" means "to shorten, by cutting off the top or the end." I'm not sure how one would even be able to do such a thing with a volume indicator. Anybody know what she means?
Here's the whole paragraph:
NEVER truncate your Volume indicator. This is a mistake because the bars represent the total number of shares traded that day, and will provide many “indications” required to understand who controls Price on that day.
OK, I get it, volume is important, but why or how would you "truncate" it?

markd

I think she means 'omit' or 'remove' from your chart.

It seems she uses a chart style for her courses where volume is at the bottom end of the chart, so "truncating" the volume indicator would shorten the chart by cutting off one end of it. That would make sense to her students.

A more general term like omit, or 'always include' would have been clearer for a general audience.

Tasuki

thanks, markd, makes sense. However good Martha is with her market savvy, her command of the English language leaves something to be desired.

osage

What she means is don't do anything that will diminish the proportional portrayal of volume whether cutting off the last few days at the end of recent volume or by shortening the vertical display of volume. I can adjust the vertical size of the volume pane and at one extreme it looks like volume is a straight line. Of course, that is extreme truncation and makes it worthless, but you get the idea.

markd

Hi @osage, I think you are right - she means keep all volume in view and legible. But I think her article was not written with a platform other than Stockcharts in mind, so SC users would be perplexed by her language. "Truncate" is not a term of art on SC. From reading her articles in TASC, it's clear she uses different charting software and I would guess "truncate" has a specific meaning in that environment that SC users would not know.