Volatility
How much price moves per unit of time — the size of the waves, independent of their direction.
What it means
Volatility measures dispersion: how far price swings around its recent path. High volatility means opportunity and risk arrive together — wider targets are reachable, and wider stops are required. Low volatility starves momentum systems and feeds mean-reversion ones.
Comparing a short window's volatility to a long window's turns it into a regime detector: expansion (short > long) marks the start of active phases; contraction marks consolidation.
Why traders care
- Position sizing and stop distance should scale with it, not fight it.
- Volatility expansion often precedes directional resolution — a timing tool.
In a TraderWe strategy
if Volatility(300) > Volatility(1800) and ChangePct > 3:
Buy()Short-term volatility expanding above its longer baseline during a real move.
Educational content, not investment advice. Engine details describe how TraderWe computes this value; other platforms may define it differently.