This weighs the gains recent buyers are taking against the quantity of coin they are moving, reporting how well the Short-Term Holder cohort is being paid for what it parts with. It is the fast counterpart to the same question asked of patient supply.

A high figure follows a quick advance that has carried this group well clear of a purchase price set only weeks earlier. Nothing about it requires anybody to have been clever.

What it actually measures

It collapses about as quickly as it climbs, and for a mechanical reason. This cohort’s purchase price chases the market, so a few flat weeks bring their cost up to the current price and the figure falls away with nobody having changed their behaviour.

Held up against the seasoned version it becomes a question about who the market is favouring. Arrivals doing better than veterans describes a market paying for speed instead of patience.

Such an arrangement has rarely held for long. A market treating its newest participants better than its most durable ones is describing a passing condition and not a settled order.

A collapsing reading can mean nothing happened at all

The instinct on seeing this figure fall away is to look for a cause among sellers, because a falling measure of realised gains sounds like behaviour changing. Very often nothing has changed.

This cohort’s cost keeps moving towards the market, so a flat few weeks is enough to close the gap on its own. Recognising that a decline here can be pure arithmetic is most of what it takes to read the series without being misled by it.

LTH Profit / Volume Ratio: a small quantity at a rich gain says more than a large one

Remarkable figures mean seasoned coin going out at remarkable prices. Readings like that have collected at the tail end of advances, at the point where even the most ancient supply decides the offer is worth taking.

Most measures of selling reward size, on the reasonable assumption that more supply matters more. This one deliberately does not, and the reason is that size is mostly a function of how busy the market happens to be.

What survives that adjustment is information about which specific coins somebody chose to part with. Ancient supply leaving at an enormous gain while almost nothing else moves is a deliberate act, and deliberate acts by this group have historically been worth more than a considerable amount of ordinary turnover.

What it does not tell you

The figure is dominated by whatever price did recently, which makes it a poor guide to anything structural. It describes the last few weeks and declines to comment on a cycle.

Small quantities produce large swings here as they do in the patient version, and this cohort’s activity varies enormously, so quiet stretches are unusually unreliable.

Nothing separates a sale from a transfer, and because this group turns over so quickly the volume of that noise is larger here than anywhere else in the family.

How to read it

Euphoria. Newcomers are being paid extraordinarily well for coin bought only weeks earlier.

Elevated. Recent buyers are parting with coin at comfortably more than they gave for it.

Fair. Newcomers are being paid about what this fast cohort usually receives.

Discount. Recent buyers are parting with coin at slim gains or none.

Deep value. Newcomers are selling at a loss, which is common enough in this cohort to be unremarkable.

STH Profit / Volume Ratio lives on the Profit & Loss dashboard among Net P&L, Realised Profit and Profit / Loss Ratio.

Common questions

What produces a high reading?

A quick advance that has carried this group well clear of a purchase price set only weeks earlier. Nothing about it requires anybody to have been clever.

Why does it collapse so quickly?

Because this cohort’s purchase price chases the market. A few flat weeks bring their cost up to the current price and the figure falls away without anybody changing their behaviour.

How should it be read against the seasoned version?

As a question about who the market is favouring. Arrivals doing better than veterans describes a market paying for speed instead of patience, and that arrangement has rarely held for long.

Does a falling reading mean sellers changed?

Often not. This cohort’s cost keeps climbing towards the market, so a decline here can be pure arithmetic with no change in anybody’s behaviour behind it.

Is it reliable in quiet stretches?

Less than anywhere else in the family. Small quantities produce large swings, and this group’s activity varies enormously from one week to the next.

Why weigh gains against quantity at all?

For proportion. A big gain spread over a big quantity is unremarkable arithmetic. The same gain on barely any coin means the particular pieces going out sit enormously far above their purchase price, which is a wholly different occurrence.

Is it jumpy in quiet markets?

Very. A small quantity underneath produces dramatic figures from very little genuine activity, which is why it deserves reading beside the underlying quantities.