What it does
Net Volume plots each bar's volume with a sign: positive when the bar closed higher than the prior close (or than its open, depending on convention), negative when it closed lower. The result is a histogram of buying-tagged versus selling-tagged volume, bar by bar. It is the per-bar building block that On Balance Volume accumulates.
How to add it
Click Indicators (ƒx) in the header.
Search “Net Volume” and click the result.
Hover its legend row and click the gear to open settings.
How traders use it
- Large positive spikes at support or after a decline show aggressive buying interest; large negative spikes at resistance show distribution.
- Compare the size of up-volume versus down-volume bars during a move: an advance on shrinking positive bars and growing negative bars is losing sponsorship.
- A breakout accompanied by an outsized positive net volume bar is far more trustworthy than one on average volume.
- Divergence with price — new price highs with clearly smaller positive volume bars — warns of exhaustion.
- Pair it with cumulative tools (OBV, A/D line) so single-bar noise is put in trend context.
Inputs
This indicator has no configurable inputs — it works out of the box.
Plots & styling
| Plot | Style | Default color |
|---|---|---|
| Net Volume | line | #2196F3 |
Every plot's color, line width and visibility can be changed on the Style tab. Precision (default 0 decimals), price-scale labels and status-line values are configurable at the bottom of the Style tab.
Reference levels
| Level | Value |
|---|---|
| 0 | 0 |
Level values, colors and line styles are editable in settings.
Tips
- Hide the study from the legend eye instead of removing it when you only want it out of the way temporarily.
- Merge multiple oscillators into one pane from the legend ⋯ menu to compare them on a shared axis.
- Double-click the plot to open settings directly, skipping the legend hover.
Watch out for
- Signing the entire bar's volume by close direction is crude: a bar closing up 0.05% counts all its volume as buying.
- On instruments with unreliable or absent volume data (spot forex, some indices) the reading is tick-count noise, not real participation.