One of the reasons we released EquityMarketsVolume was to give traders a way to verify what is being reported.

Today we heard much about the strong rally in stocks and in oil prices. The price increases are significant and encouraging to anyone on the long side. There is nothing wrong with that.

When first hearing the news about a “surge” in trading and that this rally was too strong to be faded, we decided to check. Here is how EquityMarketsVolume looked at the time of the CNBC reports:

12-20-2011 11:33:26 AM ET

The image tells us that the reports are just hype. Doesn’t mean that the rally doesn’t continue, or that it doesn’t end up attracting high-volume activity, but high volume is not how the market got where it is right now.

Equity markets volume actually began the day at a lower than average rate. The rate of trading increased to the monthly average and, as can be seen in the image, has ridden that monthly average rate of trading. As a result, it is not surprising that the rate of trading is on pace to be the 15th most active day of the last 30 days. Point being, as far as trading activity goes, it is an average day.

So is it ill-advised to fade the rally today?… Maybe! As CNBC’s Cramer said long before going to CNBC, “Never underestimate the Wall Street hype machine.”