Hi Clivemax, not sure what you're looking at but it sounds like...

Hi Clivemax, not sure what you're looking at but it sounds like it may have been todays intraday chart- 5,15 or 30minute chart maybe? Anyway doesn't matter, what I meant when talking about effort was the level of volume traded and the resulting effect it had on the price movement- about seeing a lot of volume (effort) but not much resulting price movement (result).

So to explain, if you think of volume as the fuel that drives price movements, then you would expect price on a high volume bar/candle to move further than on an average volume bar. This is what typically happens but when it doesn't happen it can tell you a lot. For example if you saw a couple of high volume bars where price moved down a relatively long way then this would be "normal" and telling you supply is stronger than demand. However if you then saw another high volume bar and price still moved down but only a very small amount then this would be an anomaly. The same high volume, fuel or effort but very little movement or result and you would be watching for the response of the next bar to confirm what looks like potentially demand increasing in strength- buyers absorbing the selling. An up bar following this would confirm the buying - after all how could price respond with an up bar if the previous bar was all selling? That is a simple example of why they say in Volume Spread Analysis (VSA) that the first sign of strength during a down trend is always on a down bar, and the first sign of weakness during an uptrend is always on an up bar. Sounds counter-intuitive at first but makes sense with this context.

There are lots of different variations of this like "hidden buying", "hidden selling", "no-demand" bars and "no-supply" bars and can take a while to learn but well worth the effort I reckon.

Anyway, maybe that helps?