Just looking for opinions.  What is the best moving average for volume on a 5m chart and why??

I would assume you are using this for some type intraday trading alert to sudden volume change so i dont think a 12 bar (1 hour of candles) vs a 20 bar or 30 bar would really be much different on the average.  A 78 bar of course is an entire days worth of 5 m candles (so you get the inclusion of the normally much larger bars at the open).

All that said, if you are looking for a slight increase in volume i would use the 78 bar average, then a volume bar > the average would most likely be near 1.5 to 2.0 times the last several bars to be greater than the average of the entire 78 bars that included the early morning bars.

If  you are looking for a sudden increase large enough to indicate something changing or about to change i would used 12 to 20 bars and be scanning for something min of 3x the volume average but 4x or 5x might be better for that.

There are so many other factors involved if you are Intraday Trading most of which you already know so i wont go on with my other thoughts.  I always enjoy sharing ideas to find trades with someone who is very active intraday.  That generally is most productive with audio disussion while actually looking at charts.

Thanks a bunch MoreAces.  That is what Im looking for - just some others opinions. I have been trading for a little over two years and have pretty much taught myself (with the help of videos etc of course) everything.  Alot of backtesting and looking at charts to see how they react to certain situations.  Just love to hear some other peoples experiences with it.