A stock breaks resistance and you buy it. It reverses and takes your money. The breakout was real — the volume behind it wasn't. The Live Volume Scanner compares every 30-minute session of every F&O stock against what that exact session normally trades, so you can tell a real move from a hollow one before you click buy. Here is exactly how to use it.
Three moves. They work every trading day, and they are all you need on day one.
The line under the page title says it outright: how many stocks are trading above 1.5x their usual volume, how many are above average, how many below, out of the total scanned. Forty stocks surging means real money is moving somewhere. Four means a dead session — trade smaller, or not at all.
Click the Volume Surge card to keep only the stocks above 1.5x. Then click a session column header to sort by that exact half hour. The stock the big money worked during that window lands at the top of your screen.
Scan left to right across that stock's row. One green cell is an event. Four green cells in a row is somebody working a large order. Those mean completely different trades. Then click the stock name to open its Market Profile chart and see where the volume happened.
Why session-by-session, and not just "today's volume"? Because total daily volume is a number that arrives too late to trade on.
Session A, right after the open, is naturally busy — everyone acts on overnight news. Session G, around lunch, is naturally dead. If you only watch total volume, a big lunchtime buyer is invisible, drowned out by the noisy open. Compare each session against its own history and that buyer lights up in a single green cell — hours before the daily volume figure looks unusual to anyone else.
Every coloured cell on the screen is this single calculation. Understand it once and the whole screen opens up.
Volume Factor = today's volume in a session ÷ that same session's 7-day average
1.0 means exactly normal. 2.0 means double what that half hour usually trades. 0.4 means barely anyone showed up. That is the entire scale.
The word doing the heavy lifting is same. Session D is only ever compared against session D, never against session A. This is what turns a raw volume number into a signal: it removes the natural shape of the trading day and leaves only the part that is genuinely unusual.
Example: RELIANCE usually trades about 5 lakh shares in session D (10:45–11:15). Today session D printed 8 lakh. Volume Factor = 8 ÷ 5 = 1.60. Sixty percent more than normal, in a window nobody was watching.
You will spend most of your time reading colour, not numbers. The same scale is used for every session cell and for the Surge× column, and the legend sits right above the table so you never have to remember it.
Green means more people traded than usual — it does not tell you which side won. Heavy volume with price up is buying pressure; the identical green cell with price down is distribution. Always read the Chg% column alongside the colour. Volume is the size of the fight; price tells you who is winning it.
A stock climbing 2% with a row of red cells is the single most dangerous pattern on this screen. Nobody of size is participating — the move is thin, and thin moves retrace fast. Traders lose more money chasing red-row rallies than they ever lose missing green ones.
The Glossary button on the scanner defines each term. This table tells you what to do with it. Every column is sortable — that is the main control on this screen.
| Column | The question it answers | How you trade it |
|---|---|---|
| Name search | Which stock? | Click it and the Market Profile chart opens in a new window — volume tells you how much, the profile tells you where. Type in the search box below the table to jump to a stock you already hold. A red BAN badge means the stock is in F&O ban: open interest has crossed 95% of MWPL and no fresh positions are allowed. |
| Sector sort | One stock, or the whole sector? | Sort by Sector to group names together. When four banking stocks all show green in the same session, that is a fund rotating into the sector — far more reliable than one stock spiking alone. |
| Price / Chg% sort | Which way is it going? | The other half of every volume reading. Sort Chg% descending with the Volume Surge filter on and you get today's genuine leaders: big moves with participation. Sort ascending for the same list on the short side. |
| Today (M) sort | How much has traded so far? | Total shares traded today, in millions. On its own it means nothing — its job is to be compared with the next column. |
| 7D Avg (M) sort | What counts as normal here? | Average total daily volume over the last 7 trading days — the baseline. Also a quick liquidity check: if the 7-day average is tiny, skip the stock regardless of how green the row looks, because you will struggle to get out of a position. |
| Surge× default sort | How unusual is today overall? | Today ÷ 7-day average, coloured on the same scale. The table already arrives sorted by this column, highest first — so the most unusual stock of the day is sitting in row one before you touch anything. Remember it is cumulative: at 10 AM a 0.4x is normal because the day is only a fifth done. |
| Del% sort | Real buying, or just churn? | Delivery percentage — how much of the volume was actually taken to demat rather than squared off intraday. Above 70% turns green. High volume with high delivery is investment demand and tends to persist for days; high volume with delivery under 30% is speculative churn that can vanish by tomorrow. This is the column that separates a multi-day move from a one-day pop. |
| O sort | How violent was the open? | Just the first five minutes, 9:15–9:20. A big number here means the overnight news was genuinely repriced at the bell rather than drifting in later. Note that O sits inside A — it is a zoom on the opening, not an extra session, so do not add them together. |
| A … M sort each | Which half hour did the money move in? | Fourteen columns, 9:15 to 3:30, each 30 minutes. This is the heart of the scanner. Click any one of them to rank all 200+ stocks by that single window — the answer to "who was being bought at 11 o'clock?" is one click away. The current session's header is highlighted so you always know where you are in the day. Hover any cell to see its exact multiple. |
One cell is a data point. The pattern across the row is the story. These six shapes cover almost everything you will see, and each one implies a different trade. Learn to recognise them and you are reading order flow, not numbers.
Several consecutive sessions elevated, nothing extreme.
This is what a large order being worked over time looks like. Nobody buying ₹200 crore does it in one print — they feed it in so the price does not run away. Sustained pressure like this is the most tradeable pattern on the screen because it tends to continue for hours, sometimes days. Check Del%: high delivery here means genuine accumulation, not intraday churn.
One violent cell surrounded by ordinary ones.
Something happened in that half hour — an announcement, a block deal, an index rebalance. Go read the news before doing anything. The critical question is what comes next: if the following sessions stay elevated, the market is repricing the stock and there is a trend to trade. If they collapse back to normal, it was a one-off transaction and the price usually drifts back.
Green in G, H or I — the sessions that are supposed to be asleep.
Between 12:15 and 1:45 the market is at its quietest. Anyone trading serious size in that window is doing it because it is quiet — less competition, less attention, less price impact. Retail is not driving a lunchtime volume spike. This is the pattern that most reliably front-runs an afternoon move, and almost nobody screens for it because you cannot see it without session-by-session comparison.
Volume building into K, L and M with price holding up.
Somebody wants to own this stock overnight, and is willing to pay up in the closing auction to get it. Closing-hour conviction frequently carries into the next morning's open. This is a watchlist-for-tomorrow signal more than a same-day trade — note the name at 3:20 and check it at 9:15. Pair it with a high Del% and it is a genuine positional footprint.
Price up over 1.5% and every single session is red.
The stock is rising on almost no participation — a thin book being pushed by small orders with nobody of size on either side. It looks strong on a candle chart and it is the easiest way to lose money on this screen. One real seller and the whole move unwinds. Do not chase it. If anything, these are the names to watch for a reversal once volume finally arrives.
The green cell lands in the same session the stock broke a key level.
This is the pattern you should care about most, because it is the one that answers a question you already had. A stock clears its Initial Balance high or yesterday's high in session C, and session C printed 2.2x — the breakout has real money behind it. Had session C been red, the same breakout would have been a coin flip. Cross-check the level on the Live Intraday Scanner, then read the confirmation here.
This scanner works differently from the Intraday Scanner: there are no per-column dropdowns. Your tools are three filter cards, sorting, and search — and sorting is far more powerful here than people expect.
Every column sorts, including each of the 14 session columns. Sorting a session descending ranks all 200+ stocks by volume in that one half hour, and sessions that have not happened yet drop harmlessly to the bottom. Want to know who was accumulated during lunch? Sort G. Who is being loaded into the close? Sort M. No other view in the platform answers that.
Volume Surge (today above 1.5x), Above Avg and Below Avg. Click one to filter the table, click it again — or use Clear Filter — to release it. Only one is active at a time, so combine them with sorting rather than with each other. The fourth card, Total Stocks, is a counter and also shows the market-wide average surge.
Above the table, every stock over 1.5x appears as a card ranked by how extreme it is. Click one to jump straight to its chart. On a busy day this is your entire shortlist, handed over without a single filter click.
A line across all 14 sessions showing the average Volume Factor of the whole market in each one. It tells you when the market as a whole woke up. If the line jumps in session D, that was a market-wide event — so a single stock's green D cell is much less special than it looks. Context that stops you mistaking the tide for a fish.
The ← → arrows replay previous trading days, cell for cell. This is how you learn what a 2x session actually led to — pick a big green cell from last week and see what the stock did next. The Snapshot label tells you how fresh the numbers are.
The global Search box filters across the whole table — type a sector name to isolate it. Copy and Excel export exactly what you are looking at, filters and sort included, which makes building your own volume journal a two-click job. There is also a Tutorial button in the toolbar if you would rather watch than read.
Neither of these is a bug. Both will cost you money if you do not know about them.
The highlighted column is the session happening right now, and its Volume Factor is computed from the volume traded so far — while the baseline it is divided by is a complete 30-minute session. So the live cell always understates, and it climbs as the session fills.
Five minutes into a session, roughly a fifth of the volume has arrived, so a cell reading 0.4x is actually running at about 2x pace. Judge the live column by pace, never by its face value — and treat the last completed session as your reliable number. This one misunderstanding is why traders dismiss surges that were screaming at them.
Volume Factor needs a complete history for every session before it can be calculated. If any session in the lookback window has no volume — a newly listed stock, an illiquid name, a session that simply did not trade — the stock is left out of the table altogether rather than shown with gaps. NIFTY-style index instruments such as FINNIFTY futures and INDIAVIX are excluded by design too.
So if a stock you are watching is absent, it is not a glitch: the scanner is telling you it has no trustworthy baseline for it. That itself is useful information about how thin the name is.
Volume is a confirmation tool, not an entry signal. A green cell tells you people were trading, not which direction to take. It answers "should I trust this move?" — never "which way is it going?" Get the direction from price and Market Profile structure, then come here to decide whether the move deserves your money.
Each one is a filter card plus a sort plus what to look for in the row. Pick two or three that suit how you trade rather than trying all ten.
Biggest gainers that actually have participation behind them.
The list every "top gainers" screen should show you and never does. Anything at the top here is rising and being bought — a completely different animal from a thin mover. Flip the sort to ascending for the short side.
Heavy volume, high delivery, several consecutive elevated sessions.
Surging volume with delivery above 70% is somebody taking real ownership, not day-trading. Combine that with a staircase row and you have found a position being built — the kind of move that is still going tomorrow.
Who was trading heavily while the market was asleep?
The scan almost nobody runs. Sort the quietest session in the day and read the top five names. Size traded in dead hours is deliberate, and it very often shows up as an afternoon move. Check Session Momentum first — if the whole market was busy in G, ignore this.
Did the half hour it broke out in carry real volume?
The single most valuable 10 seconds you can spend before entering. Green in the breakout session means take the trade; red means it is a coin flip dressed up as a signal. Use this on every setup the Intraday Scanner hands you.
Who is paying up to own this overnight?
Run it in the last twenty minutes, write down three names, and open them at 9:15 tomorrow. Closing-hour volume with high delivery is the clearest overnight-conviction footprint you can get without paying for order-flow data.
Stocks up nicely on below-average volume.
Your do-not-chase list — and a reversal shortlist. These moves have no support underneath them. Watch for the session where volume finally arrives: if it arrives with price turning down, the unwind can be quick.
One extreme cell with ordinary sessions on either side.
Anything at 3x or more deserves a news check before a trade. The follow-through decides everything: sessions that stay elevated mean the market is repricing the stock; an immediate drop back to normal means the transaction is done and so is the move.
Which stocks were repriced hard in the first five minutes?
A huge O with A and B staying elevated means the market genuinely re-rated the stock and is continuing to trade it. A huge O that dies in A was just overnight orders clearing — the excitement is already over.
Is the whole sector being bought, or just one name?
Four or five names in one sector all running above average is fund-level rotation, and rotation has much better follow-through than a single stock spiking. Trade the strongest for momentum or the laggard for catch-up.
What did a 3x session actually lead to?
The fastest way to build real intuition. Walk back ten days, take the top surge each day, and see what the stock did over the next few hours. Ten days of your own observation beats any amount of theory about volume.
Volume has a natural shape: heavy at the open, dead at lunch, heavy again into the close. Knowing the shape is what lets you spot a break in it (all times IST).
Almost everything looks green early because the open is always heavy. Raise your bar: in these sessions, only 2x and above is genuinely interesting. Sort O to see which stocks were repriced hardest at the bell.
Breakouts happen here, and this is where volume earns its keep. Any level broken in B, C or D should have a green cell against it. This is also where staircase patterns first become visible.
No open-auction distortion, no lunch lull. Volume Factor is at its most meaningful here — whatever is green in E and F is green because someone chose to trade it.
These sessions are supposed to be dead, which is exactly why green here means so much. Run The Lunch Raid. Anyone moving size while the market is at its thinnest is doing it on purpose, and it frequently precedes the afternoon move.
The day's real direction usually settles here. Volume returning in J and K behind the morning's direction confirms the trend; volume arriving against it is a warning that the move is being unwound.
The closing session carries auction volume and end-of-day positioning. Sort M, note the names, and export the table — today's closing footprint is tomorrow's watchlist.
These two screens answer different halves of the same question, and neither is complete alone.
The Live Intraday Scanner tells you what is happening and where — the stock gapped up, drove higher, is holding above value, a single print is forming. That is structure and direction.
This screen tells you whether anyone of size agrees. Same stock, same half hour: green means the structure has money behind it, red means it is a story without a sponsor.
The workflow is simple and it is what experienced users actually do: find the setup on the Intraday Scanner, confirm it here, then trade it. Two tabs, ten extra seconds, and a large share of bad trades never get taken.
This page is the operating manual. These go wider and deeper.
The Volume Scanner Secret: how to see institutional footprints before the big move — the background story on why absolute volume numbers are useless and session comparison changes everything.
Live Intraday Scanner guide — every Market Profile column, how to stack filters into your own scans, and 13 ready-made setups. Find the structure there, confirm the money here.
What is Market Profile and the Market Profile Glossary — TPO sessions, Value Area, POC and Initial Balance from scratch. The session letters on this screen are the same ones.
MP Charts guide — volume tells you how much; the profile tells you where. Value area, POC, TPO size, the Volume Profile layer, naked VPOCs and composites.
Live Volume Scanner overview — what it covers, how often it refreshes, and how it fits with the rest of the platform.
Without logging in you are looking at the previous session's data — enough to learn the colour scale, practise the row shapes and walk back through history. The live heatmap, refreshing through the day with surge cards, session momentum and one-click Market Profile charts, is what you use to trade.
Volume Factor compares each 30-minute session against its own recent average. The scanner is an analysis and education tool: it measures participation, it does not predict outcomes or give investment advice. Heavy volume can precede a move in either direction, and every pattern on this page fails sometimes — position size and stop-losses are your responsibility. Please trade only with capital you can afford to risk.