Accumulation/Distribution VolumeThis is a simple yet powerful indicator that can replace volume, Money Flow, Chaikin Money Flow, Price Volume Trend (PVT), Accumulation/Distribution Line (ADL), On Balance Volume (OBV).
When "Baseline Chart" option is disabled, it looks similar to regular volume. The volume bars has two shades of green and red. The dark shade shows amount of accumulation and the light shade shows total volume (what you see on a regular volume indicator). Blue line is the moving average (or cumulative total) of A/D and the gray line is for total volume.
When money volume is enabled, volume it multiplied by price. As you can see in the chart below, trade volume in terms of USD was declining after ATH. This is not the case in regular volume chart which shows instrument volume (chart above).
In Baseline view, the aggregation method you choose can turn it into different indicators. With EMA/SMA aggregation, blue and gray line shows buy/sell pressure. At 0, there is not buy or sell pressure.
If you turn off volume bars (from style menu), it gives you a reliable indicator to measure divergence. This should be more reliable than most other range-bound indicators (i.e. RSI, MFI, CMF). I will publish a TA about correctly measuring divergence (it's a must read even if you are a pro trader). Make sure that the length is set to a large number on smaller TFs such as 4h.
For following results, set aggregation to cumulative and turn off money volume:
When wick weight=0, the GRAY line is identical to OBV indicator.
When normalized by spread and wick weight=10, the BLUE line is identical to ADL (improved by true range).
When normalized by previous bar price, wick weight=0, the BLUE line is identical to PVT.
How I use this indicator:
- Baseline chart, replaced my regular volume indicator
- Mostly 4h TF for divergence
- EMA aggregation (and occasional cumulative aggregation) with length above 50. I change the length to 100 and 200 for confirmation.
- Wick weight=0 or max 2.
With this indicator, you can learn how different indicators are built and how they are different from each other. I will publish a TA to explain more about different indicators and their pros and cons.
I will publish this indicator without volume bars and additional options to make it range bound.
