Does the volume indictated in stock market quotes includes buying and selling or just buying?

Question

Does the volume indictated in stock market quotes includes buying and selling or just buying?

Answer 1

Volume represents SHARES TRADED, even on the NASDAQ (they do not count each buy AND sell).  For a trade to take place a buyer must take shares from a seller.  So every trade involves 2 simultaneous transactions, a buy and a sell.

100,000 shares traded in a day could just as easily be one buyer who bought 100,000 shares from 100,000 sellers, or vice versa (hypothetically!).  But either way, only 100,000 shares would show in the tape, and the tape is what ultimately provides volume information.

Answer 2

They might have changed the rules but if Im not mistaken on Nasdaq, they double count the volume.  I.e., if you buy 100 shares of MSFT, they count the 100 shares you bought as volume plus the 100 shares the seller sold as volume meaning 200 shares in total.  

The NYSE just counts the volume in a single transaction.  If you buy 100 shares of IBM, then the volume is 100 shares.

Answer 3

Every buy is also a sell, so there's no difference.

Answer 4

It's a transaction (which includes someone buying from someone selling).

Answer 5

If you are talking about quotes,

the quote is for only one side, either the bid or the ask and each side has a "size" which is the number of shares..

If you asking about the over all market volume, it is for the shares of a transaction which includes the buyer and the seller in that given transaction

Answer 6

It includes both ends of the transaction.