Wyckoff Method
Volume Spread Analysis glossary · Wyckoff Phases & Schematics
Definition
A market analysis framework developed by Richard Wyckoff that forms the foundation of Volume Spread Analysis. It identifies how professional operators (composite man) accumulate and distribute positions through identifiable market phases, using price and volume relationships to reveal supply and demand dynamics.
Wyckoff Method in plain English
Imagine you're watching a crowded auction, but you can only see the price tags and how many hands go up on each bid — from that alone, you want to figure out what the big, savvy buyers are secretly doing. That's the Wyckoff Method: a way of reading a market's price and its 'volume' (how many shares actually changed hands) to spot when large professional players are quietly building up positions (accumulating) or unloading them (distributing) before the crowd catches on. Wyckoff imagined all these pros acting as one clever 'composite man,' and taught that their footprints show up as repeating stages you can learn to recognize. It's the foundation Volume Spread Analysis is built on — the whole idea is that price plus volume together reveal the tug-of-war between buyers (demand) and sellers (supply).
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