Find days when a stock traded far above its recent normal volume, and check whether news explains the move — separating announced events from accumulation nobody announced.
Volume is the least ambiguous signal a thinly traded stock produces. Price can drift on a handful of shares and tell you almost nothing. A sudden multiple of normal turnover means somebody with conviction is transacting, and in a market where most listings trade a few thousand dollars a day, that is unusual enough to be worth examining.
The interesting cases are the unexplained ones. When volume spikes on the morning of a drill result, the market is doing what it should. When volume spikes on a quiet Tuesday with no announcement, something else is happening — accumulation ahead of news, a holder exiting, or a position being built by someone who has done work you have not.
This tool flags days where volume exceeded its recent baseline by a chosen multiple, and cross-references the news record so explained and unexplained spikes can be told apart.
Flagged days are sessions where volume exceeded the trailing baseline by your chosen multiple. The default of two and a half times normal is a reasonable starting point; lowering it surfaces more noise, raising it isolates only dramatic events.
The news cross-reference is the important column. A flagged day matched to an announcement is the market reacting, which is informative but not surprising. A flagged day with nothing attached is the signal worth investigating.
Price movement alongside volume changes the interpretation entirely. Heavy volume with the price up suggests buying pressure; heavy volume with the price down suggests a seller working through the book. Heavy volume with the price flat often means a block changed hands between two parties who already agreed on value.
The pattern most worth noticing is a cluster of unexplained volume days with the price grinding higher and no news. In a sector where information leaks — drill crews, assay labs, contractors and their families all see results before the market does — persistent accumulation before an announcement is a real phenomenon rather than a conspiracy theory.
Equally informative is the opposite: a major announcement that produces no volume response. If a company reports what it calls a significant intercept and the market barely trades, the market has judged it insignificant. That disagreement is worth understanding before you side with the press release.
Be careful with single spikes on very illiquid names. In a stock that normally trades almost nothing, one ordinary retail order can produce a tenfold volume multiple that means nothing at all. Check the absolute dollar volume, not just the multiple — the liquidity screener gives you the baseline.
The baseline is the average volume over the trailing 20 trading days. Any session exceeding that baseline by the chosen multiple is flagged. The lookback window is adjustable between 30 and 365 days, and the multiple between 1.5 and 10. News releases are matched to flagged days by date, and price history is over-fetched beyond the window so that the earliest days still have a full baseline behind them.
That someone is transacting with more conviction than usual. In a sector where most listings trade very little on a normal day, a large multiple of baseline volume means real orders are being worked. Whether that is informed buying, a holder exiting, or a mechanical fund trade is what the news cross-reference and price direction help you judge.
No, and it should not be treated as one. It is a prompt to look harder at a company, not a conclusion. Unexplained volume can be accumulation ahead of news, but it can equally be a fund rebalancing, a private block trade, or an estate liquidating a position. The tool tells you where to look, not what you have found.
Because the multiple is relative. If a listing normally trades a few hundred dollars a day, a single ordinary retail order can be ten times the baseline while being financially trivial. Always check the absolute dollar volume of the flagged session before drawing any conclusion.
Usually a block trade — a large holding changing hands between two parties who have already agreed a price. It shows a significant position moved without telling you much about direction, though who was buying and why can be worth investigating.
The default of 2.5 times the trailing 20-day baseline is a sensible starting point. Lower it to around 1.5 and you will see far more sessions, most of them noise. Raise it towards 5 and only dramatic events survive, which is useful on a liquid name and will show almost nothing on a quiet one.