Effort vs Result is the one view here that asks what the trading achieved rather than how much of it there was. It tracks how much money it has been taking to move price by one percent, which is the cost of movement itself.

A high reading means the market is expensive to shift. A low one means a given amount of money goes very much further, and that is a different market to be standing in.

What it actually measures

The figure rises when large sums are absorbed without much happening to price, which is what depth looks like from the outside. It falls when modest sums are producing large moves.

It is ranked against the market’s own record rather than measured against a fixed sum, so the same colours carry the same meaning whatever is on screen. Thin means thin for this asset.

Individual sessions are marked where effort and result parted company most sharply. Heavy trading that moved nothing sits at one extreme and a large move on almost no trading at the other, and both cluster near turns.

Volume alone cannot tell absorption from a push

The same amount of trading can mean opposite things. Size quietly filled by a willing counterparty leaves price where it was, while the same size hitting an empty book moves it a long way.

Setting the movement against the money that produced it separates the two. What emerges is a measure of how much resistance the market is offering, which is the thing a bare volume figure has no way of reporting.

What it does not tell you

It describes conditions rather than direction. A thin market is easier to move both ways, and nothing here says which way it is about to be moved. The reading raises the odds of a large move without hinting at its sign.

It inherits every weakness of reported trading. Where the underlying figures are inflated, the cost of movement they imply is wrong in the same proportion.

It is a market-wide reading rather than an order-book one. Real depth sits at particular levels on particular venues, and one daily figure smooths all of that away.

How to read it

DEEP. It is taking unusually large sums to shift price, and an advance from here has to be paid for.

NORMAL DEPTH. Shifting the market costs roughly what it has usually cost.

THIN. Modest sums are shifting price a long way, which has been the condition ahead of the sharpest turns.

The Volume dashboard draws Effort vs Result alongside Vol Surge, Daily Volume and Liquidity Correlation.

Common questions

What does the headline number mean?

How much money it has lately taken to shift price by one percent. It answers what a volume figure cannot, which is whether the trading is moving anything at all.

Why is a high reading the calm one?

Because more money was taken up for the same movement, and that is what depth is. A falling figure says the market has grown thin, and a thin market is easy to push.

What are the marked sessions?

The two shapes where effort and result parted company. One is heavy trading with almost no movement, meaning size was filled quietly; the other is a large move on almost no trading at all.

Does this work on other assets?

Yes. The scale is set by each asset’s own record rather than by a fixed sum, so thin means thin for whatever is on screen.

Does a thin market argue for a fall?

Not by itself. Thin cuts both ways, and the sharpest advances have started from thin conditions just as often as the sharpest declines.