Conversely, not every transaction is an actual transfer of value from one person to another. Sometimes users are just moving funds from cold storage to a hot-wallet or vice-versa. Some transactions are merely for other blockchains, altcoins and certain services to leverage Bitcoin's security for their own means. Transactions like this are not indicative of any kind of economic benefit to Bitcoin.
And sometimes even a normal payment that should theoretically be one tx is taking 3 or 4.
Yesterday I bought something from a store, my funds moved to the payment address, in the next block to another, in the 3rd a batch transactions with two more inputs, and again another batched transaction with 5 this time, and then the entire sum moved again to an address where they currently wait.
Exactly. The rudimentary impression people seem to have is that 1 tx equals one transfer of value from person A to person B, but this is simply not the case in many situations. It's not accurate. Taking that inaccuracy and then using it to predict market movements simply isn't viable. You've got a better chance of using transaction volume to predict tomorrow's weather.