What it does
The Positive Volume Index (PVI) tracks price changes only on bars where volume increased from the prior bar. On higher-volume days the index changes by that day's percentage price change; on lower-volume days it stays flat. The theory, from Paul Dysart and Norman Fosback, is that high-volume days reflect the crowd and less-informed money, so PVI shows what price does when the masses are active.
Typeoscillatorseparate pane
How to add it
Click Indicators (ƒx) in the header.
Search “Positive Volume Index” and click the result.
Hover its legend row and click the gear to open settings.
How traders use it
- Compare PVI to a long moving average of itself, commonly 255 days: PVI above that average has historically indicated favorable, bull-market conditions.
- Interpret it jointly with NVI: NVI (smart money) leading upward while PVI confirms gives the strongest bullish alignment.
- A falling PVI while price rises suggests the crowd is not participating in the advance, a subtle warning about breadth of enthusiasm.
- It is a slow, big-picture gauge best read on daily charts over months, not an entry-timing tool.
Inputs
| Input | Type | Default | Range / Options |
|---|---|---|---|
| EMA length | number | 255 | 1– |
| Timeframe | select | Chart | Chart / 1 minute / 5 minutes / 15 minutes / 30 minutes / 1 hour / 1 day / 1 week / 1 month |
| Wait for timeframe closes | boolean | On | — |
Plots & styling
| Plot | Style | Default color |
|---|---|---|
| PVI | line | #05B878 |
| PVI-based EMA | line | #ff9800 |
Every plot's color, line width and visibility can be changed on the Style tab. Precision (default 2 decimals), price-scale labels and status-line values are configurable at the bottom of the Style tab.
Tips
- 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.
- The pane keeps its height in saved layouts, so size it once and it survives reloads.
- A custom timeframe input lets it compute on a higher interval than the chart.
Watch out for
- The crowd-versus-smart-money premise is a heuristic, and signals arrive with long lag given the 255-day reference average.
- It depends on clean volume data and behaves poorly on instruments with erratic or unreliable volume reporting.