Volume dry-up inside a consolidation
Tight 20-session ranges near six-month highs where volume has drained to under 60% of its 50-session average.
By Rohit Singh (Mr. Chartist) · Updated 2026-08-25
Volume dry-up is the quietest signal on a chart and one of the more reliable ones. A stock that has stopped falling, stopped moving, and stopped trading has run out of sellers — there is nobody left who wants out at these prices.
The location clause is what stops this being a scan for abandoned stocks. Requiring the quiet range to sit within 8% of the six-month high means the silence is happening near the top of the range, not at the bottom of a decline nobody is watching.
( {cash} ( latest max( 20 , latest high ) < latest min( 20 , latest low ) * 1.10 and latest close > latest max( 125 , latest high ) * 0.92 and latest sma( latest volume , 5 ) < latest sma( latest volume , 50 ) * 0.6 and latest volume < latest sma( latest volume , 50 ) * 0.7 and latest sma( latest volume , 50 ) > 200000 and latest close > 50 ) )Chartink can fail silently. Tested on 2026-08-25: a clause containing a nonsense token returned the same number of rows as the correct one, with no error, and a clause with no comparison in it returned every stock in the segment. A scan that returns results has not necessarily parsed as you intended — so sanity-check a few of the names it gives you against the conditions above before trusting the list.
Chartink's own documentation notes that scans cannot always be copy-pasted directly, and its in-app copy function moves condition groups rather than raw text. Treat this clause as the specification to reproduce in the condition builder; if pasting works in your account, so much the better.
What this scan actually tests
- Range containment: across the last 20 daily candles including today, the highest high sits below 1.10× the lowest low — the whole span, wicks included, inside roughly 10%.
- Location: today's close is within 8% of the highest high of the last 125 candles, so the quiet range is near the top of the half-year range.
- A sustained dry-up: 5-session average volume below 60% of the 50-session average — a drained week, not one sleepy session.
- Today is quiet too: volume below 70% of the 50-session average, so four quiet candles cannot mask a spike printed today.
What it cannot see
A scan is bar arithmetic. It cannot read a chart, and every recipe here is honest about where the machine stops and your eyes start.
- The base as a SHAPE. It measures one number — the 20-candle high-low span. Whether the ceiling is flat and how often each boundary was touched is eye-work.
- Where inside the range price sits. A name can pass while hugging the floor of its range instead of coiling under the ceiling — a very different read.
- The sequence of contraction. It compares two averages; it cannot confirm the quiet stretch is the newest part of the range.
- Why volume fell. A stock quiet because it has been abandoned passes identically to one genuinely coiling.
Why this setup is worth scanning for
Price and volume contracting together is energy being stored. It says nothing about direction — the resolution can go either way — but it does say the next move is likely to be a move rather than more drift.
Short and slow-changing. Names should persist for days or weeks; a list that turns over daily suggests the thresholds are too loose for the current market.
Written By
Rohit Singh
Mr. Chartist
With 14+ years of experience in Indian financial markets, Rohit Singh (Mr. Chartist) is a SEBI Registered Research Analyst, Amazon #1 bestselling author, and the founder of Investology — a premium trading ecosystem trusted by a 1.5 Lakh+ strong community across India.
Educational content. A scan is a filter, not a recommendation — the names it returns are candidates for your own analysis, not a buy list, and nothing here is investment advice. Chartink is a third-party service with no affiliation to this site. Registration granted by SEBI, membership of BASL and certification from NISM in no way guarantee performance or assure returns. Markets carry risk.