Delta
Aggressive buying minus aggressive selling inside each bar, as bars from zero or a chain of Japanese candles in a band under the chart.
Aggressive buying minus aggressive selling in each bar, as bars from zero or as a chain of Japanese candles.
- Candles
- 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h
- Footprint
- 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h
- Not drawn on
- Renko, Range bars, Line break — This chart type has no time axis, so order-flow indicators cannot be plotted on it
- Alerts
- no
What it shows
Every trade has an aggressor: a buyer who lifted the ask, or a seller who hit the bid. Delta is the buying volume minus the selling volume inside one bar. Each bar stands alone, with no running total: it is the same number as CVD in its delta bars mode, on a row of its own.
How to read it
- Which side won the bar. A tall column above zero is a bar aggressive buyers dominated; below zero, sellers.
- Disagreement with the candle. A green candle with negative delta rose while sellers were the aggressors.
- Candles. Each candle opens where the last one closed and its body is that bar's delta, so the row reads like a price chart of the order flow, with trends, pullbacks and ranges.
- Wicks. A wick shows how far the delta ran inside the bar before it closed. A long upper wick on a small body says buyers got far ahead and were pushed back.
Parameters
| Setting | Control | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Draw as | Choice Delta bars · Candles | Bars grow from zero, each bar on its own. Candles read like a market: each opens where the last closed, the body is that bar's delta, and the wicks show how far it ran inside the bar where that was measured. The candle level is a running sum from the oldest bar loaded, so read the moves rather than the number on the axis. default: Delta bars |
| Height (%) | Number | Height of the band, as a percentage of the panel. Dragging the band's edge changes it too. 8–50 · default 18 |
Draw as switches between Delta bars and Candles. Bars grow from zero, each on its own. Candles have no zero line: their level is a running sum from the oldest bar loaded, so the number on the axis moves as older bars load. Read the moves, not the level.
Limitations
- It draws on candles and footprint at 1m, 5m, 15m and 1h, and not on Renko, range bars or line break.
- Each bar's value arrives once the bar has closed.
- A bar with no measurement of its intrabar path has a candle with no wick.
- It has no alert of its own: to alert on this number, use CVD in delta bars mode.