Volume needs a side
High volume alone is not a signal. A bar can trade three times its average volume going nowhere — two-sided activity, buyers and sellers equally matched, a fight with no winner. Relative volume elevated does not mean the session has found direction. It means participants are present.
The Knight adds the missing piece. It fires when ♘relative volume exceeds the threshold and the ♛Queen has already declared a side. Volume on its own is participation. Volume with the Queen on side is directional participation — and that is a different thing entirely.
The condition
Two requirements, both must be true simultaneously:
Neither condition alone is sufficient. RVOL without the Queen is noise — participation without direction. The Queen without RVOL is structure without force. The Knight requires both.
It takes the Queen's color
Like the ♝Red and Green Bishops, the Knight inherits the Queen's color. Green when price is above the Kijun. Red when below.
What it tells you
The Knight is a weight signal. When it fires, the session is not just structurally aligned — it has the volume to back it up. The Queen said which side. The Knight said that side has participants.
In a session where the Queen has been green for several bars but volume has been thin, a Knight firing means the participation has arrived. The move that was structurally valid is now also volumetrically supported. That is a different quality of setup.
Conversely, a session where RVOL has been elevated but the Queen has not declared a side — no Knight. The participants are there but the direction is not resolved. The Knight waits for both.
The RVOL thresholds
The Knight fires at the minimum threshold — RVOL above 1.2, meaning the current bar is at least 20% above its 5-bar average. But the reading scales with the RVOL level. A Knight firing at 1.8 or above carries more weight than one at 1.2. The condition is binary — fired or not — but the strength of the underlying volume is continuous.
Why it matters for options
An options position benefits from two things being true simultaneously: structural direction and real participation. Structure without volume can stall — the Kijun is above but no one is buying. Volume without structure can reverse — participants are active but fighting over direction.
The Green Knight means both are present. Price is above the Kijun, the session is structurally long, and volume has confirmed that buyers are actually there. For a call position, that is the combination worth holding. For a put, the Red Knight gives the same confirmation on the short side.
On any chart
Add the Kijun-sen and an RVOL indicator to your chart. The Knight condition is visible with both on screen: check whether price is above or below the Kijun, then check the RVOL sub-pane. When RVOL crosses above 1.2 on the correct side of the Kijun, the Knight has fired.
The check takes two seconds once both indicators are in place. No calculation required — just two readings, one from each pane, combined into a single judgment. That is the Knight. Simple, fast, and directional.
For the full picture on how RVOL is calculated and what the thresholds mean, see the ♘Relative Volume article.