A method that reads the intent of large operators from three footprints: volume, spread, and the position of the close. Not a single formula, but a trained eye for when supply and demand agree and when they quietly contradict.
Volume Spread Analysis (VSA) grew out of Richard Wyckoff's view of markets and was codified by the British trader Tom Williams.
Its defining trait is that it refuses to collapse into one equation.
VSA looks at only three things on each bar.
The bar's volume. The bar's spread (its range, the distance between high and low). And where the close landed inside that range (near the top or near the bottom).
By holding these three against one another bar by bar, VSA infers whether the large operators (the smart money) driving the market are accumulating or distributing.
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Where price studies say at what level the market moved and volume studies say how much it moved, VSA confronts both inside a single bar.
Did the effort (volume) match the result (the move)? That one question runs through all of VSA.
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