Use Case · Technical

Volume spike alerts

4 min read · Use case

Volume precedes price. A stock spiking to 5× its 30-day average volume — even before any major price move — is usually telling you something is about to happen. Tickerbot fires the moment the spike happens.

Why volume is the leading indicator

Almost every meaningful price move starts with a volume spike. News, insider buying, institutional rotation, technical breakouts — they all show up first in unusual volume. Price moves catch up minutes or hours later.

The challenge is that "unusual" means different things for different stocks. AAPL trades millions of shares per minute. A small-cap might trade 200K shares per day. Both can spike — but you have to measure relative to each stock's baseline.

How Tickerbot does it

Tickerbot tracks the 30-day average daily volume for every ticker and computes relative volume (RVOL) every five minutes. When RVOL crosses a threshold you set, the alert fires.

Basic spike alert

Any stock with relative volume above 5× the 30-day average

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RIVN 5.4× volume. Price unchanged so far.

Spikes with no price reaction (the highest signal)

The highest-signal volume spike is one where price hasn't moved yet. Someone is accumulating or distributing aggressively without showing up in the price action. Watch what happens in the following hours.

Pre-move accumulation signal

Volume more than 5× average with intraday price change less than 1%

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SOFI 5.8× volume, +0.4%. Watching closely.

Variants worth setting up

"Volume spike with price up more than 4% intraday" (momentum confirmation)
"Volume spike on a stock with a fresh news catalyst today"
"Volume spike on any small-cap under $2B market cap"
"Volume spike + breakout above the 20-day high (the cleanest entry)"
"Volume spike + RSI under 40" (capitulation signal)

Set up your first volume alert

Volume tells you something is happening. Tickerbot tells you the second.