Volume ratio: a normalized volume measure worth stealing

Absolute volume is nearly useless for comparing names. A million shares means something different on every ticker. Most of us solve this badly, by eyeballing "is this more than usual." The measure that fixed it for me: the rate at which volume is arriving right now, divided by the average rate over recent sessions at the same point in the day. Above one means faster than this name's own normal; below one means slower. Two properties make it useful. It's comparable across tickers, so you can rank a universe by it. And because it's normalized against the same time of day, it doesn't just tell you "it's the open" — the denominator already accounts for that. An approximation with what we have: # BUY — participation running well above this name's own recent normal if SumBuyVol(300) + SumSellVol(300) > AvgTradeAmount(3600) * 1.8: if ChangeAngle(60) > 20: Buy()Not the same computation, same idea: measure against the instrument's own baseline rather than an absolute number.