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Intrabar flow estimates: delta, absorption, CVD

On this page
TradingView has no order bookHow the engine worksThe flow markersStacked imbalance zonesWhen markers appearHow to read flow estimatesSettings

AK FlowBook estimates buying and selling pressure from the small bars inside each chart bar. This page explains how that works, what each flow marker means and where the estimate stops being reliable.

TradingView has no order book

Important: TradingView gives indicators price and bar volume only. There is no order book (DOM), no market-by-order data, no bid/ask and no time and sales. Every flow value in AK FlowBook is an estimate built from bar data, and it is marked with ~.

Real delta is the difference between volume traded at the ask and at the bid. AK FlowBook cannot see that. Instead, it looks at lower-timeframe bars and treats volume on rising bars as buying pressure and volume on falling bars as selling pressure. That is a useful approximation of who was pushing, not the real aggressor side. For real exchange order flow, see AK FlowBook for NinjaTrader.

How the engine works

  1. For every chart bar, the indicator requests the lower-timeframe bars inside it (1-minute bars on a 5-minute chart).
  2. A 1-minute bar that closes above its open counts as up-bar volume. One that closes below its open counts as down-bar volume. If it closes where it opened, the indicator compares its close with the previous 1-minute close; if that is also flat, the volume is split evenly.
  3. Delta~ for the chart bar = up-bar volume minus down-bar volume.
  4. CVD~ = delta added up bar by bar. The dashboard CVD resets each new trading day by default (CVD anchor (dashboard)).
  5. The volume of each 1-minute bar is placed at its middle price. That builds the price rows used by the footprint panel, the volume profiles and the imbalance zones.

Which intrabar timeframe is used

With Intrabar timeframe set to Auto (the default):

Chart timeframeIntrabars used
Under 1 minuteThe chart timeframe itself
1 minute to 1 hour1 minute
Over 1 hour up to 4 hours5 minutes
Over 4 hours up to 1 day15 minutes
Above 1 day60 minutes

The finer the intrabars, the more detail the estimate has. For gold, a 5-minute chart with 1-minute intrabars is the intended set-up. Manual lets you pick the intrabar timeframe in Manual intrabar TF. Seconds timeframes need a TradingView Premium plan (per the setting's tooltip).

The intrabar history limit

TradingView keeps a limited amount of lower-timeframe history. On older bars without intrabars:

  • the bar's buy-side share is estimated from where it closed inside its range,
  • the flow markers (D~, A~, CVD~, Δ÷, EXH) and imbalance zones are switched off, because a cruder estimate would mean something different,
  • profiles are spread across the bar's range and are coarser.

If the last bar has no intrabar data, the dashboard title shows (pre-IB data) and the header shows PROXY instead of IB 1.

The flow markers

All flow markers are hidden in the default Elite marker mode. See Display and marker modes to show them.

MarkerLookWhat it means
D~Aqua triangle below the bar, or fuchsia triangle aboveThe bar's delta estimate is unusually large on one side compared with recent bars. By default it is drawn only near a level (D~ display near location only) and not more often than every few bars.
BV~Blue square below, or red square aboveUnusually high bar volume with a close in the upper or lower part of the bar. Based on chart volume only.
A~Green diamond below, or orange diamond aboveAbsorption: heavy volume, a small body, volume concentrated at one end of the bar, intrabar pressure toward that end, and a close away from it. Effort without result. See the absorption guide.
CVD~Teal label below, or orange label aboveDivergence at a confirmed swing: a lower low with higher CVD (below), or a higher high with lower CVD (above).
Δ÷Aqua label under the low, or fuchsia label over the highSame idea as CVD~, but compares the delta of the last few bars (Swing delta length (bars)) instead of the cumulative total. Hidden in Clean display mode.
EXHOrange labelExhaustion: a new high made while the delta estimate is negative, or a new low made while it is positive. Off by default.
• and ● bubblesTeal, maroon or grey labels with a volume numberA single 1-minute bar with unusually large volume (•), or at least twice that threshold (●). Teal for a rising 1-minute bar, maroon for a falling one, grey for flat. Hidden in Clean display mode.

Markers placed below the bar describe pressure from the buy side or a failed push lower; markers above the bar describe the opposite. They describe what volume and price did. They are not instructions.

Note: A volume-chunk bubble is not an exchange trade print, a DOM event or a market-by-order event. It is one lower-timeframe bar with large volume.

Stacked imbalance zones

On closed bars with intrabar data, the indicator compares up-bar and down-bar volume in each price row of the bar. When at least Stacked bins required (3) neighboring rows each show one side at least Imbalance ratio (up:down volume) (3.0) times the other, and each row holds enough of the bar's volume, those rows form a zone. Zones end when price closes through them or after Zone max life (bars).

The zones are calculated even when not drawn; they count as levels for the setup engine and for the D~ location filter. Turn on Draw imbalance zone boxes to see them as teal (up-volume) or maroon (down-volume) boxes. This is a same-row comparison of 1-minute up and down bars, not the diagonal bid/ask imbalance of an exchange footprint.

When markers appear

  • CVD~ and Δ÷ need a confirmed swing, so they appear a few bars after the swing (CVD divergence pivot, 5 bars by default) and are drawn back on the swing bar.
  • D~, BV~ and A~ are evaluated on every update. On the live bar they can appear and disappear until the bar closes. Judge them on closed bars.
  • Δ÷, EXH and the bubbles follow Confirm on bar close, and on non-gold or non-5-minute charts they are also hidden while Limit setup markers to XAU/GC 5-minute is on.

How to read flow estimates

  • Location first. A flow marker in the middle of nowhere means little. The same marker at VAL, a naked POC or a prior day low is worth a closer look.
  • Effort versus result. Large volume with little price progress (A~) suggests the other side absorbed the push. Large one-sided pressure that moves price (D~ with a strong close) suggests initiative.
  • Confirmation over time. One marker is one bar. Look at what the next bars do.
  • Feed differences. CFD volume is the broker's volume, futures volume is exchange volume. The same move can produce different markers on OANDA:XAUUSD and COMEX:GC1!.

Settings

The main switches are in the Volume / Order-Flow Proxies, Intrabar Volume-Flow Proxy, Large Intrabar Volume Chunks, Imbalance / Exhaustion and Event Markers groups. Every one is listed in the Settings reference.

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Education only. Not financial advice. Trading futures and CFDs carries a high risk of loss.