**Asset returns** are the most common data type used in finance. They are derived from **closing price** data. Ordinary level 1 data for stocks not only consists of closing prices, but also **gross volume** traded in the security, however, which is the absolute sum of both the number of shares that were bought *and* sold by end-of-day.

Assume there is a means of distilling gross volume into a **net volume** measure, that reports whether there was more buying (bid) activity than sell (ask) activity (executed transactions) by end-of-day, in other words, net volume is the change in magnitude and direction of trading activity. 

Would net volume be a good predictor of asset performance, in the same way that asset returns properly describe whether, and by how much, an asset's value is going up or down? based on the premise that investor sentiment (bullishness), captured in net volume/trading activity, should (but might not) drive/reflect an asset's value reliably?