A running line that signs each trade by its actual execution side (aggressive buy or aggressive sell) and accumulates the difference. It shows directly who is doing the chasing behind price, and its divergence warns when that force is drying up.
CVD (Cumulative Volume Delta) classifies each individual trade as an aggressive buy or an aggressive sell, takes the difference (the delta), and accumulates it over time into a single running line.
Where OBV signs a bar's entire volume by the direction of the close, CVD signs volume by the direction of the trades themselves. That distinction is the whole point. OBV sorts volume by asking "which way did price move," while CVD reads, straight from the trade data, "who reached out to take the price."
A trade that lifts the ask (filling against resting sell orders) counts as an aggressive buy. A trade that hits the bid (filling against resting buy orders) counts as an aggressive sell. Because this split requires raw order-book and trade data, CVD lives mostly in futures and crypto markets, where that data is available.
How to Read
BINANCE:BTCUSDT
When CVD rises, aggressive buying is winning. When it falls, aggressive selling is winning. Even when price sits in the same place, the slope of CVD tells you whether the buyers or the sellers are the ones doing the work to hold it there.
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