A Look at Declining Volume on Five Prior Market Tops

With the current rally progressing on lower volume, I thought I would take a moment to look back at a few historical market tops – or prior to deeper pullbacks – to see how volume behaved just prior to the top.

Let’s see five historical peaks in the Dow Jones Index and pay special attention to the trend of volume prior to these peaks. Each chart was created with TradeStation and you can click to zoom-in on the chart.

Watch the Daily Divergences in Platinum Prices

Platinum Prices? What does that have to do with stocks? For one, the recent price pattern in Platinum resembles the recent ‘run-ups’ in stock prices.

Let’s take a quick look at the daily chart of platinum futures (index) to note the negative divergences setting in under the recent 2009 price highs and levels to watch to confirm a turn… or trend continuation and over-ruling of these pesky divergences.

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How Else Can We Interpret Recent Volume Developments as Bearish?

Looking inside the most recent short-term moves in the broader market, we see a stellar signal from reading volume alongside with price.

Using classic volume interpretation methods, we can only come to one conclusion – volume insights are sending a bearish non-confirmation signal as the market grasps at recent highs, and either volume is going to have to pick-up (increase) to keep this rally going… or else price is going to have to fall via the signals from the “Voices of Volume.”