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Bar Balance [LucF]Bar Balance extracts the number of up, down and neutral intrabars contained in each chart bar, revealing information on the strength of price movement. It can display stacked columns representing raw up/down/neutral intrabar counts, or an up/down balance line which can be calculated and visualized in many different ways.
WARNING: This is an analysis tool that works on historical bars only. It does not show any realtime information, and thus cannot be used to issue alerts or for automated trading. When realtime bars elapse, the indicator will require a browser refresh, a change to its Inputs or to the chart's timeframe/symbol to recalculate and display information on those elapsed bars. Once a trader understands this, the indicator can be used advantageously to make discretionary trading decisions.
Traders used to work with my Delta Volume Columns Pro will feel right at home in this indicator's Inputs . It has lots of options, allowing it to be used in many different ways. If you value the bar balance information this indicator mines, I hope you will find the time required to master the use of Bar Balance well worth the investment.
█ OVERVIEW
The indicator has two modes: Columns and Line .
Columns
• In Columns mode you can display stacked Up/Down/Neutral columns.
• The "Up" section represents the count of intrabars where `close > open`, "Down" where `close < open` and "Neutral" where `close = open`.
• The Up section always appears above the centerline, the Down section below. The Neutral section overlaps the centerline, split halfway above and below it.
The Up and Down sections start where the Neutral section ends, when there is one.
• The Up and Down sections can be colored independently using 7 different methods.
• The signal line plotted in Line mode can also be displayed in Columns mode.
Line
• Displays a single balance line using a zero centerline.
• A variable number of independent methods can be used to calculate the line (6), determine its color (5), and color the fill (5).
You can thus evaluate the state of 3 different components with this single line.
• A "Divergence Levels" feature will use the line to automatically draw expanding levels on divergence events.
Features available in both modes
• The color of all components can be selected from 15 base colors, with 16 gradient levels used for each base color in the indicator's gradients.
• A zero line can show a 6-state aggregate value of the three main volume balance modes.
• The background can be colored using any of 5 different methods.
• Chart bars can be colored using 5 different methods.
• Divergence and large neutral count ratio events can be shown in either Columns or Line mode, calculated in one of 4 different methods.
• Markers on 6 different conditions can be displayed.
█ CONCEPTS
Intrabar inspection
Intrabar inspection means the indicator looks at lower timeframe bars ( intrabars ) making up a given chart bar to gather its information. If your chart is on a 1-hour timeframe and the intrabar resolution determined by the indicator is 5 minutes, then 12 intrabars will be analyzed for each chart bar and the count of up/down/neutral intrabars among those will be tallied.
Bar Balances and calculation methods
The indicator uses a variety of methods to evaluate bar balance and to derive other calculations from them:
1. Balance on Bar : Uses the relative importance of instant Up and Down counts on the bar.
2. Balance Averages : Uses the difference between the EMAs of Up and Down counts.
3. Balance Momentum : Starts by calculating, separately for both Up and Down counts, the difference between the same EMAs used in Balance Averages and an SMA of double the period used for the EMAs. These differences are then aggregated and finally, a bounded momentum of that aggregate is calculated using RSI.
4. Markers Bias : It sums the bull/bear occurrences of the four previous markers over a user-defined period (the default is 14).
5. Combined Balances : This is the aggregate of the instant bull/bear bias of the three main bar balances.
6. Dual Up/Down Averages : This is a display mode showing the EMA calculated for each of the Up and Down counts.
Interpretation of neutral intrabars
What do neutral intrabars mean? When price does not change during a bar, it can be because there is simply no interest in the market, or because of a perfect balance between buyers and sellers. The latter being more improbable, Bar Balance assumes that neutral bars reveal a lack of interest, which entails uncertainty. That is the reason why the option is provided to interpret ratios of neutral intrabars greater than 50% as divergences. It is also the rationale behind the option to dampen signal lines on the inverse ratio of neutral intrabars, so that zero intrabars do not affect the signal, and progressively larger proportions of neutral intrabars will reduce the signal's amplitude, as the balance calcs using the up/down counts lose significance. The impact of the dampening will vary with markets. Weaker markets such as cryptos will often contain greater numbers of neutral intrabars, so dampening the Line in that sector will have a greater impact than in more liquid markets.
█ FEATURES
1 — Columns
• While the size of the Up/Down columns always represents their respective importance on the bar, their coloring mode is independent. The default setup uses a standard coloring mode where the Up/Down columns over/under the zero line are always in the bull/bear color with a higher intensity for the winning side. Six other coloring modes allow you to pack more information in the columns. When choosing to color the top columns using a bull/bear gradient on Balance Averages, for example, you will end up with bull/bear colored tops. In order for the color of the bottom columns to continue to show the instant bar balance, you can then choose the "Up/Down Ratio on Bar — Dual Solid Colors" coloring mode to make those bars the color of the winning side for that bar.
• Line mode shows only the line, but Columns mode allows displaying the line along with it. If the scale of the line is different than that of the scale of the columns, the line will often appear flat. Traders may find even a flat line useful as its bull/bear colors will be easily distinguishable.
2 — Line
• The default setup for Line mode uses a calculation on "Balance Momentum", with a fill on the longer-term "Balance Averages" and a line color based on the "Markers Bias". With the background set on "Line vs Divergence Levels" and the zero line on the hard-coded "Combined Bar Balances", you have access to five distinct sources of information at a glance, to which you can add divergences, divergences levels and chart bar coloring. This provides powerful potential in displaying bar balance information.
• When no columns are displayed, Line mode can show the full scale of whichever line you choose to calculate because the columns' scale no longer interferes with the line's scale.
• Note that when "Balance on Bar" is selected, the Neutral count is also displayed as a ratio of the balance line. This is the only instance where the Neutral count is displayed in Line mode.
• The "Dual Up/Down Averages" is an exception as it displays two lines: one average for the Up counts and another for the Down counts. This mode will be most useful when Columns are also displayed, as it provides a reference for the top and bottom columns.
3 — Zero Line
The zero line can be colored using two methods, both based on the Combined Balances, i.e., the aggregate of the instant bull/bear bias of the three main bar balances.
• In "Six-state Dual Color Gradient" mode, a dot appears on every bar. Its color reflects the bull/bear state of the Combined Balances, and the dot's brightness reflects the tally of balance biases.
• In "Dual Solid Colors (All Bull/All Bear Only)" a dot only appears when all three balances are either bullish or bearish. The resulting pattern is identical to that of Marker 1.
4 — Divergences
• Divergences are displayed as a small circle at the top of the scale. Four different types of divergence events can be detected. Divergences occur whenever the bull/bear bias of the method used diverges with the bar's price direction.
• An option allows you to include in divergence events instances where the count of neutral intrabars exceeds 50% of the total intrabar count.
• The divergence levels are dynamic levels that automatically build from the line's values on divergence events. On consecutive divergences, the levels will expand, creating a channel. This implementation of the divergence levels corresponds to my view that divergences indicate anomalies, hesitations, points of uncertainty if you will. It excludes any association of a pre-determined bullish/bearish bias to divergences. Accordingly, the levels merely take note of divergence events and mark those points in time with levels. Traders then have a reference point from which they can evaluate further movement. The bull/bear/neutral colors used to plot the levels are also congruent with this view in that they are determined by price's position relative to the levels, which is how I think divergences can be put to the most effective use.
5 — Background
• The background can show a bull/bear gradient on four different calculations. You can adjust its brightness to make its visual importance proportional to how you use it in your analysis.
6 — Chart bars
• Chart bars can be colored using five different methods.
• You have the option of emptying the body of bars where volume does not increase, as does my TLD indicator, the idea behind this being that movement on bars where volume does not increase is less relevant.
7 — Intrabar Resolution
You can choose between three modes. Two of them are automatic and one is manual:
a) Fast, Longer history, Auto-Steps (~12 intrabars) : Optimized for speed and deeper history. Uses an average minimum of 12 intrabars.
b) More Precise, Shorter History Auto-Steps (~24 intrabars) : Uses finer intrabar resolution. It is slower and provides less history. Uses an average minimum of 24 intrabars.
c) Fixed : Uses the fixed resolution of your choice.
Auto-Steps calculations vary for 24/7 and conventional markets in order to achieve the proper target of minimum intrabars.
You can choose to view the intrabar resolution currently used to calculate delta volume. It is the default.
The proper selection of the intrabar resolution is important. It must achieve maximal granularity to produce precise results while not unduly slowing down calculations, or worse, causing runtime errors.
8 — Markers
Six markers are available:
1. Combined Balances Agreement : All three Bar Balances are either bullish or bearish.
2. Up or Down % Agrees With Bar : An up marker will appear when the percentage of up intrabars in an up chart bar is greater than the specified percentage. Conditions mirror to down bars.
3. Divergence confirmations By Price : One of the four types of balance calculations can be used to detect divergences with price. Confirmations occur when the bar following the divergence confirms the balance bias. Note that the divergence events used here do not include neutral intrabar events.
4. Balance Transitions : Bull/bear transitions of the selected balance.
5. Markers Bias Transitions : Bull/bear transitions of the Markers Bias.
6. Divergence Confirmations By Line : Marks points where the line first breaches a divergence level.
Markers appear when the condition is detected, without delay. Since nothing is plotted in realtime, markers do not appear on the realtime bar.
9 — Settings
• Two modes can be selected to dampen the line on the ratio of neutral intrabars.
• A distinct weight can be attributed to the count of the latter half of intrabars, on the assumption that later intrabars may be more important in determining the outcome of chart bars.
• Allows control over the periods of the different moving averages used in calculations.
• The default periods used for the various calculations define the following hierarchy from slow to fast:
Balance Averages: 50,
Balance Momentum: 20,
Dual Up/Down Averages: 20,
Marker Bias: 10.
█ LIMITATIONS
• This script uses a special characteristic of the `security()` function allowing the inspection of intrabars—which is not officially supported by PulseWire.
• The method used does not work on the realtime bar—only on historical bars.
• The indicator only works on some chart resolutions: 3, 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 12 hours, 1 day, 1 week and 1 month. The script’s code can be modified to run on other resolutions, but chart resolutions must be divisible by the lower resolution used for intrabars and the stepping mechanism could require adaptation.
• When using the "Line vs Divergence Levels — Dual Color Gradient" color mode to fill the line, background or chart bars, keep in mind that a line calculation mode must be defined for it to work, as it determines gradients on the movement of the line relative to divergence levels. If the line is hidden, it will not work.
• When the difference between the chart’s resolution and the intrabar resolution is too great, runtime errors will occur. The Auto-Steps selection mechanisms should avoid this.
• Alerts do not work reliably when `security()` is used at intrabar resolutions. Accordingly, no alerts are configured in the indicator.
• The color model used in the indicator provides for fancy visuals that come at a price; when you change values in Inputs , it can take 20 seconds for the changes to materialize. Luckily, once your color setup is complete, the color model does not have a large performance impact, as in normal operation the `security()` calls will become the most important factor in determining response time. Also, once in a while a runtime error will occur when you change inputs. Just making another change will usually bring the indicator back up.
█ RAMBLINGS
Is this thing useful?
I'll let you decide. Bar Balance acts somewhat like an X-Ray on bars. The intrabars it analyzes are no secret; one can simply change the chart's resolution to see the same intrabars the indicator uses. What the indicator brings to traders is the precise count of up/down/neutral intrabars and, more importantly, the calculations it derives from them to present the information in a way that can make it easier to use in trading decisions.
How reliable is Bar Balance information?
By the same token that an up bar does not guarantee that more up bars will follow, future price movements cannot be inferred from the mere count of up/down/neutral intrabars. Price movement during any chart bar for which, let's say, 12 intrabars are analyzed, could be due to only one of those intrabars. One can thus easily see how only relying on bar balance information could be very misleading. The rationale behind Bar Balance is that when the information mined for multiple chart bars is aggregated, it can provide insight into the history behind chart bars, and thus some bias as to the strength of movements. An up chart bar where 11/12 intrabars are also up is assumed to be stronger than the same up bar where only 2/12 intrabars are up. This logic is not bulletproof, and sometimes Bar Balance will stray. Also, keep in mind that balance lines do not represent price momentum as RSI would. Bar Balance calculations have no idea where price is. Their perspective, like that of any historian, is very limited, constrained that it is to the narrow universe of up/down/neutral intrabar counts. You will thus see instances where price is moving up while Balance Momentum, for example, is moving down. When Bar Balance performs as intended, this indicates that the rally is weakening, which does necessarily imply that price will reverse. Occasionally, price will merrily continue to advance on weakening strength.
Divergences
Most of the divergence detection methods used here rely on a difference between the bias of a calculation involving a multi-bar average and a given bar's price direction. When using "Bar Balance on Bar" however, only the bar's balance and price movement are used. This is the default mode.
As usual, divergences are points of interest because they reveal imbalances, which may or may not become turning points. I do not share the overwhelming enthusiasm traders have for the purported ability of bullish/bearish divergences to indicate imminent reversals.
Superfluity
In "The Bed of Procrustes", Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes: To bankrupt a fool, give him information . Bar Balance can display lots of information. While learning to use a new indicator inevitably requires an adaptation period where we put it through its paces and try out all its options, once you have become used to Bar Balance and decide to adopt it, rigorously eliminate the components you don't use and configure the remaining ones so their visual prominence reflects their relative importance in your analysis. I tried to provide flexible options for traders to control this indicator's visuals for that exact reason—not for window dressing.
█ NOTES
For traders
• To avoid misleading traders who don't read script descriptions, the indicator shows nothing in the realtime bar.
• The Data Window shows key values for the indicator.
• All gradients used in this indicator determine their brightness intensities using advances/declines in the signal—not their relative position in a fixed scale.
• Note that because of the way gradients are optimized internally, changing their brightness will sometimes require bringing down the value a few steps before you see an impact.
• Because this indicator does not use volume, it will work on all markets.
For coders
• For those interested in gradients, this script uses an advanced version of the Advance/Decline gradient function from the PineCoders Color Gradient (16 colors) Framework . It allows more precise control over the range, steps and min/max values of the gradients.
• I use the PineCoders Coding Conventions for Pine to write my scripts.
• I used functions modified from the PineCoders MTF Selection Framework for the selection of timeframes.
█ THANKS TO:
— alexgrover who helped me think through the dampening method used to attenuate signal lines on high ratios of neutral intrabars.
— A guy called Kuan who commented on a Backtest Rookies presentation of their Volume Profile indicator . The technique I use to inspect intrabars is derived from Kuan's code.
— theheirophant , my partner in the exploration of the sometimes weird abysses of `security()`’s behavior at intrabar resolutions.
— midtownsk8rguy , my brilliant companion in mining the depths of Pine graphics. He is also the co-author of the PineCoders Color Gradient Frameworks . Indicator
Delta Volume Candles [LucF]█ OVERVIEW
This indicator plots on-chart volume delta information using candles that can replace your normal candles, tops and bottoms appended to normal candles, optional MAs of those tops and bottoms levels, a divergence channel and a chart background. The indicator calculates volume delta using intrabar analysis, meaning that it uses the lower timeframe bars constituting each chart bar.
█ CONCEPTS
Volume Delta
The volume delta concept divides a bar's volume in "up" and "down" volumes. The delta is calculated by subtracting down volume from up volume. Many calculation techniques exist to isolate up and down volume within a bar. The simplest use the polarity of interbar price changes to assign their volume to up or down slots, e.g., On Balance Volume or the Klinger Oscillator . Others such as Chaikin Money Flow use assumptions based on a bar's OHLC values. The most precise calculation method uses tick data and assigns the volume of each tick to the up or down slot depending on whether the transaction occurs at the bid or ask price. While this technique is ideal, it requires huge amounts of data on historical bars, which considerably limits the historical depth of charts and the number of symbols for which tick data is available. Furthermore, historical tick data is not yet available on PulseWire.
This indicator uses intrabar analysis to achieve a compromise between the simplest and most precise methods of calculating volume delta. It is currently the most precise method usable on PulseWire charts. PulseWire's Volume Profile built-in indicators use it, as do the CVD - Cumulative Volume Delta Candles and CVD - Cumulative Volume Delta (Chart) indicators published from the PulseWire account . My Delta Volume Channels and Volume Delta Columns Pro indicators also use intrabar analysis. Other volume delta indicators such as my Realtime 5D Profile use realtime chart updates to calculate volume delta without intrabar analysis, but that type of indicator only works in real time; they cannot calculate on historical bars.
This is the logic I use to determine the polarity of intrabars, which determines the up or down slot where its volume is added:
• If the intrabar's open and close values are different, their relative position is used.
• If the intrabar's open and close values are the same, the difference between the intrabar's close and the previous intrabar's close is used.
• As a last resort, when there is no movement during an intrabar, and it closes at the same price as the previous intrabar, the last known polarity is used.
Once all intrabars making up a chart bar have been analyzed and the up or down property of each intrabar's volume determined, the up volumes are added, and the down volumes subtracted. The resulting value is volume delta for that chart bar, which can be used as an estimate of the buying/selling pressure on an instrument. Not all markets have volume information. Without it, this indicator is useless.
Intrabar analysis
Intrabars are chart bars at a lower timeframe than the chart's. The timeframe used to access intrabars determines the number of intrabars accessible for each chart bar. On a 1H chart, each chart bar of an active market will, for example, usually contain 60 bars at the lower timeframe of 1min, provided there was market activity during each minute of the hour.
This indicator automatically calculates an appropriate lower timeframe using the chart's timeframe and the settings you use in the script's "Intrabars" section of the inputs. As it can access lower timeframes as small as seconds when available, the indicator can be used on charts at relatively small timeframes such as 1min, provided the market is active enough to produce bars at second timeframes.
The quantity of intrabars analyzed in each chart bar determines:
• The precision of calculations (more intrabars yield more precise results).
• The chart coverage of calculations (there is a 100K limit to the quantity of intrabars that can be analyzed on any chart,
so the more intrabars you analyze per chart bar, the less chart bars can be calculated by the indicator).
The information box displayed at the bottom right of the chart shows the lower timeframe used for intrabars, as well as the average number of intrabars detected for chart bars and statistics on chart coverage.
Balances
This indicator calculates five balances from volume delta values. The balances are oscillators with a zero centerline; positive values are bullish, and negative values are bearish. It is important to understand the balances as they can be used to:
• Color candle bodies.
• Calculate body and top and bottom divergences.
• Color an EMA channel.
• Color the chart's background.
• Configure markers and alerts.
The five balances are:
1 — Bar Balance : This is the only balance using instant values; it is simply the subtraction of the down volume from the up volume on the bar, so the instant volume delta for that bar.
2 — Average Balance : Calculates a distinct EMA for both the up and down volumes, and subtracts the down EMA from the up EMA.
The result is akin to MACD's histogram because it is the subtraction of two moving averages.
3 — Momentum Balance : Starts by calculating, separately for both up and down volumes, the difference between the same EMAs used in "Average Balance" and
an SMA of twice the period used for the "Average Balance" EMAs. The difference for the up side is subtracted from the difference for the down side,
and an RSI of that value is calculated and brought over the −50/+50 scale.
4 — Relative Balance : The reference values used in the calculation are the up and down EMAs used in the "Average Balance".
From those, we calculate two intermediate values using how much the instant up and down volumes on the bar exceed their respective EMA — but with a twist.
If the bar's up volume does not exceed the EMA of up volume, a zero value is used. The same goes for the down volume with the EMA of down volume.
Once we have our two intermediate values for the up and down volumes exceeding their respective MA, we subtract them. The final value is an ALMA of that subtraction.
The rationale behind using zero values when the bar's up/down volume does not exceed its EMA is to only take into account the more significant volume.
If both instant volume values exceed their MA, then the difference between the two is the signal's value.
The signal is called "relative" because the intermediate values are the difference between the instant up/down volumes and their respective MA.
This balance flatlines when the bar's up/down volumes do not exceed their EMAs, which makes it useful to spot areas where trader interest dwindles, such as consolidations.
The smaller the period of the final value's ALMA, the more easily it will flatline. These flat zones should be considered no-trade zones.
5 — Percent Balance : This balance is the ALMA of the ratio of the "Bar Balance" over the total volume for that bar.
From the balances and marker conditions, two more values are calculated:
1 — Marker Bias : This sums the up/down (+1/‒1) occurrences of the markers 1 to 4 over a period you define, so it ranges from −4 to +4, times the period.
Its calculation will depend on the modes used to calculate markers 3 and 4.
2 — Combined Balances : This is the sum of the bull/bear (+1/−1) states of each of the five balances, so it ranges from −5 to +5.
The periods for all of these balances can be configured in the "Periods" section at the bottom of the script's inputs. As you cannot see the balances on the chart, you can use my Volume Delta Columns Pro indicator in a pane; it can plot the same balances, so you will be able to analyze them.
Divergences
In the context of this indicator, a divergence is any bar where the bear/bull state of a balance (above/below its zero centerline) diverges from the polarity of a chart bar. No directional bias is assigned to divergences when they occur. Candle bodies and tops/bottoms can each be colored differently on divergences detected from distinct balances.
Divergence Channel
The divergence channel is the space between two levels (by default, the bar's open and close ) saved when divergences occur. When price (by default the close ) has breached a channel and a new divergence occurs, a new channel is created. Until that new channel is breached, bars where additional divergences occur will expand the channel's levels if the bar's price points are outside the channel.
Prices breaches of the divergence channel will change its state. Divergence channels can be in one of three different states:
• Bull (green): Price has breached the channel to the upside.
• Bear (red): Price has breached the channel to the downside.
• Neutral (gray): The channel has not yet been breached.
█ HOW TO USE THE INDICATOR
I do not make videos to explain how to use my indicators. I do, however, try hard to include in their description everything one needs to understand what they do. From there, it's up to you to explore and figure out if they can be useful in your trading practice. Communicating in videos what this description and the script's tooltips contain would make for very long videos that would likely exceed the attention span of most people who find this description too long. There is no quick way to understand an indicator such as this one because it uses many different concepts and has quite a bit of settings one can use to modify its visuals and behavior — thus how one uses it. I will happily answer questions on the inner workings of the indicator, but I do not answer questions like "How do I trade using this indicator?" A useful answer to that question would require an in-depth analysis of who you are, your trading methodology and objectives, which I do not have time for. I do not teach trading.
Start by loading the indicator on an active chart containing volume information. See here if you need help.
The default configuration displays:
• Normal candles where the bodies are only colored if the bar's volume has increased since the last bar.
If you want to use this indicator's candles, you may want to disable your chart's candles by clicking the eye icon to the right of the symbol's name in the top left of the chart.
• A top or bottom appended to the normal candles. It represents the difference between up and down volume for that bar
and is positioned at the top or bottom, depending on its polarity. If up volume is greater than down volume, a top is displayed. If down volume is greater, a bottom is plotted.
The size of tops and bottoms is determined by calculating a factor which is the proportion of volume delta over the bar's total volume.
That factor is then used to calculate the top or bottom size relative to a baseline of the average candle body size of the last 100 bars.
• An information box in the bottom right displaying intrabar and chart coverage information.
• A light red background when the intrabar volume differs from the chart's volume by more than 1%.
The script's inputs contain tooltips explaining most of the fields. I will not repeat them here. Following is a brief description of each section of the indicator's inputs which will give you an idea of what the indicator can do:
Normal Candles is where you configure the replacement candles plotted by the script. You can choose from different coloring schemes for their bodies and specify a unique color for bodies where a divergence calculated using the method you choose occurs.
Volume Tops & Botttoms is where you configure the display of tops and bottoms, and their EMAs. The EMAs are calculated from the high point of tops and the low point of bottoms. They can act as a channel to evaluate price, and you can choose to color the channel using a gradient reflecting the advances/declines in the balance of your choice.
Divergence Channel is where you set up the appearance and behavior of the divergence channel. These areas represent levels where price and volume delta information do not converge. They can be interpreted as regions with no clear direction from where one will look for breaches. You can configure the channel to take into account one or both types of divergences you have configured for candle bodies and tops/bottoms.
Background allows you to configure a gradient background color that reflects the advances/declines in the balance of your choice. You can use this to provide context to the volume delta values from bars. You can also control the background color displayed on volume discrepancies between the intrabar and the chart's timeframe.
Intrabars is where you choose the calculation mode determining the lower timeframe used to access intrabars. The indicator uses the chart's timeframe and the type of market you are on to calculate the lower timeframe. Your setting there should reflect which compromise you prefer between the precision of calculations and chart coverage. This is also where you control the display of the information box in the lower right corner of the chart.
Markers allows you to control the plotting of chart markers on different conditions. Their configuration determines when alerts generated from the indicator will fire. Note that in order to generate alerts from this script, they must be created from your chart. See this Help Center page to learn how. Only the last 500 markers will be visible on the chart, but this will not affect the generation of alerts.
Periods is where you configure the periods for the balances and the EMAs used in the indicator.
The raw values calculated by this script can be inspected using the Data Window.
█ INTERPRETATION
Rightly or wrongly, volume delta is considered by many a useful complement to the interpretation of price action. I use it extensively in an attempt to find convergence between my read of volume delta and price movement — not so much as a predictor of future price movement. No system or person can predict the future. Accordingly, I consider people who speak or act as if they know the future with certainty to be dangerous to themselves and others; they are charlatans, imprudent or blissfully ignorant.
I try to avoid elaborate volume delta interpretation schemes involving too many variables and prefer to keep things simple:
• Trends that have more chances of continuing should be accompanied by VD of the same polarity.
In trends, I am looking for "slow and steady". I work from the assumption that traders and systems often overreact, which translates into unproductive volatility.
Wild trends are more susceptible to overreactions.
• I prefer steady VD values over wildly increasing ones, as large VD increases often come with increased price volatility, which can backfire.
Large VD values caused by stopping volume will also often occur on trend reversals with abnormally high candles.
• Prices escaping divergence channels may be leading a trend in that direction, although there is no telling how long that trend will last; could be just a few bars or hundreds.
When price is in a channel, shifts in VD balances can sometimes give us an idea of the direction where price has the most chance of breaking.
• Dwindling VD will often indicate trend exhaustion and predate reversals by many bars, but the problem is that mere pauses in a trend will often produce the same behavior in VD.
I think it is too perilous to infer rigidly from VD decreases.
Divergence Channel
Here I have configured the divergence channels to be visible. First, I set the bodies to display divergences on the default Bar Balance. They are indicated by yellow bodies. Then I activated the divergence channels by choosing to draw levels on body divergences and checked the "Fill" checkbox to fill the channel with the same color as the levels. The divergence channel is best understood as a direction-less area from where a breach can be acted on if other variables converge with the breach's direction:
Tops and Bottoms EMAs
I find these EMAs rather interesting. They have no equivalent elsewhere, as they are calculated from the top and bottom values this indicator plots. The only similarity they have with volume-weighted MAs, including VWAP, is that they use price and volume. This indicator's Tops and Bottoms EMAs, however, use the price and volume delta. While the channel differs from other channels in how it is calculated, it can be used like others, as a baseline from which to evaluate price movement or, alternatively, as stop levels. Remember that you can change the period used for the EMAs in the "Periods" section of the inputs.
This chart shows the EMAs in action, filled with a gradient representing the advances/decline from the Momentum balance. Notice the anomaly in the chart's latest bars where the Momentum balance gradient has been indicating a bullish bias for some time, during which price was mostly below the EMAs. Price has just broken above the channel on positive VD. My interpretation of this situation would be that it is a risky opportunity for a long trade in the larger context where the market has been in a downtrend since the 5th. Intrepid traders choosing to enter here could do so with a "make or break" tight stop that will minimize their losses should the market continue its downtrend while hopefully preserving the potential upside of price continuing on the longer-term uptrend prevalent since the 28th:
█ NOTES
Volume
If you use indicators such as this one which depends on volume information, it is important to realize that the volume data they consume comes from data feeds, and that all data feeds are NOT created equally. Those who create the data feeds we use must make decisions concerning the nature of the transactions they tally and the way they are tallied in each feed, and these decisions affect the nature of our volume data. My Volume X-ray publication discusses some of the reasons why volume information from different timeframes, brokers/exchanges or sectors may vary considerably. I encourage you to read it. This indicator's display of a warning through a background color on volume discrepancies between the timeframe used to access intrabars and the chart's timeframe is an attempt to help you realize these variations in feeds. Don't take things for granted, and understand that the quality of a given feed's volume information affects the quality of the results this indicator calculates.
Markets as ecosystems
I believe it is perilous to think that behavioral patterns you discover in one market through the lens of this or any other indicator will necessarily port to other markets. While this may sometimes be the case, it will often not. Why is that? Because each market is its own ecosystem. As cities do, all markets share some common characteristics, but they also all have their idiosyncrasies. A proportion of a city's inhabitants is always composed of outsiders who come and go, but a core population of regulars and systems is usually the force that actually defines most of the city's observable characteristics. I believe markets work somewhat the same way; they may look the same, but if you live there for a while and pay attention, you will notice the idiosyncrasies. Some things that work in some markets will, accordingly, not work in others. Please keep that in mind when you draw conclusions.
On Up/Down or Buy/Sell Volume
Buying or selling volume are misnomers, as every unit of volume transacted is both bought and sold by two different traders. While this does not keep me from using the terms, there is no such thing as “buy only” or “sell only” volume. Trader lingo is riddled with peculiarities. Without access to order book information, traders work with the assumption that when price moves up during a bar, there was more buying pressure than selling pressure, just as when buy market orders take out limit ask orders in the order book at successively higher levels. The built-in volume indicator available on PulseWire uses this logic to color the volume columns green or red. While this script’s calculations are more precise because it analyses intrabars to calculate its information, it uses pretty much the same imperfect logic. Until Pine scripts can have access to how much volume was transacted at the bid/ask prices, our volume delta calculations will remain a mere proxy.
Repainting
• The values calculated on the realtime bar will update as new information comes from the feed.
• Historical values may recalculate if the historical feed is updated or when calculations start from a new point in history.
• Markers and alerts will not repaint as they only occur on a bar's close. Keep this in mind when viewing markers on historical bars,
where one could understandably and incorrectly assume they appear at the bar's open.
To learn more about repainting, see the Pine Script™ User Manual's page on the subject .
Superfluity
In "The Bed of Procrustes", Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes: To bankrupt a fool, give him information . This indicator can display a lot of information. The inevitable adaptation period you will need to figure out how to use it should help you eliminate all the visuals you do not need. The more you eliminate, the easier it will be to focus on those that are the most useful to your trading practice. Don't be a fool.
█ THANKS
Thanks to alexgrover for his Dekidaka-Ashi indicator. His volume plots on candles were the inspiration for my top/bottom plots.
Kudos to PineCoders for their libraries. I use two of them in this script: Time and lower_tf .
The first versions of this script used functionality that I would not have known about were it not for these two guys:
— A guy called Kuan who commented on a Backtest Rookies presentation of their Volume Profile indicator.
— theheirophant , my partner in the exploration of the sometimes weird abysses of request.security() ’s behavior at lower timeframes.
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