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On Balance Volume Fields
The On Balance Volume (OBV) indicator was developed by Joseph E. Granville and published first in his book "New key to stock market profits" in 1963. It uses volume to determine momentum of an asset. The base concept of OBV is - in simple terms - you take a running total of the volume and either add or subtract the current timeframe volume if the market goes up or down. The simplest use cases only use the line build that way to confirm direction of price, but the possibilities and applications of OBV go far beyond that and are (at least to my knowledge) not found in existing indicators available on this platform.
If you are interested to get a deeper understanding of OBV, I recommend the lecture of the above mentioned book by Granville. All the features described below are taken directly from the book or are inspired by it (deviations will be marked accordingly). If you have no prior experience with OBV, I recommend to start simple and read an easy introduction (e.g. On-Balance Volume (OBV) Definition from Investopedia) and start applying the basic concepts first before heading into the more advanced analysis of OBV fields and trends.
Markets and Timeframes
As the OBV is "just" a momentum indicator, it should be applicable to any market and timeframe.
As a long term investor, my experience is limited to the longer timeframes (primarily daily), which is also how Granville applies it. But that is most likely due to the time it was developed and the lack of lower timeframe data at that point in time. I don't see why it wouldn't be applicable to any timeframe, but cannot speak from experience here so do your own research and let me know. Likewise, I invest in the crypto markets almost exclusively and hence this is where my experience with this indicator comes from.
Feature List
As a general note before starting into the description of the individual features: I use the colors and values of the default settings of the indicator to describe it. The general look and feel obviously can be customized (and I highly recommend doing so, as this is a very visual representation of volume, and it should suit your way of looking at a chart) and I also tried to make the individual features as customizable as possible.
Also, all additions to the OBV itself can be turned off so that you're left with just the OBV line (although if that's what you want, I recommend a version of the indicator with less overhead).
Fields
Fields are defined as successive UPs or DOWNs on the OBV. An UP is any OBV reading above the last high pivot and subsequently a DOWN is any reading below the last low pivot. An UP-field is the time from the first UP after a DOWN-field to the first DOWN (not including). The same goes for a DOWN field but vice versa.
The field serves the same purpose as the OBV itself. To indicate momentum direction. I haven't found much use for the fields themselves other than serving as a more smoothed view on the current momentum. The real power of the fields emerges when starting to determine larger trends of off them (as you will see soon).
Therefor the fields are displayed on the indicator as background colors (UP = green, DOWN = red), but only very faint to not distract too much from the other parts of the indicator.
Major Volume Trend
The major volume trend - from which Granville says, it's the one that tends to precede price - is determined as the succession of the highest highs and lowest lows of UP and DOWN fields. It is represented by the colors of the numbers printed on the highs and lows of the fields.
The trend to be "Rising" is defined as the highest high of an UP field being higher than the highest high of the last UP field and the lowest low of the last DOWN field being higher than the lowest low of the prior DOWN field. And vice versa for a "Falling" trend. If the trend does not have a rising or falling pattern, it is said to be "Doubtful". The colors are indicated as follows:
ZigZag Swing count
The swing count is determined by counting the number of swings within a trend (as described above) and is represented by the numbers above the highs and lows of the fields. It determines the length and thus strength of a trend.
In general there are two ways to determine the count. The first one is by counting the swings between pivots and the second one by counting the swings between highs and lows of fields. This indicator represents the SECOND one as it represents the longer term trend (which I'm more interested in as it denotes a longer term perspective).
However, the ZigZag count has three applications on the OBV. The "simple ZigZag" is a count of three swings which mainly tells you that the shorter term momentum of the market has changed and the current trend is weakening. This doesn't mean it will reverse. A count of three downs is still healthy if it occurs on a strong uptrend (and vice versa) and it should primarily serve as a sign of caution. If the count increases beyond three, the last trend is weakening considerably, and you should probably take action.
The second count to look out for is five swings - the "compound ZigZag". If this goes hand in hand with breaking a major support/resistance on the OBV it can offer a buying/selling opportunity in the direction of the trend. Otherwise, there's a good chance that this is a reversal signal.
The third count is nine. To quote Granville directly: "there is a very strong tendency FOR MAJOR REVERSAL OF REND AFTER THE NINTH SWING" (emphasis by the author). This is something I look out for and get cautious about, although I have found signal to be weak in an overextended market. I have observed counts of 10 and even 12 which did not result in a major reversal and the market trended further after a short period of time. This is still a major sign of caution and should not be taken lightly.
Moving average
Although Granville talks only briefly about averages and the only mention of a specific one is the 10MA, I found moving averages to be a very valuable addition to my analysis of the OBV movements.
The indicator uses three Exponential Moving Averages. A long term one to determine the general direction and two short term ones to determine the momentum of the trend. Especially for the latter two, keep in mind that those are very indirect as they are indicators of an indicator anyway and I they should not necessarily be used as support or resistance (although that might sometimes be helpful). I recommend paying most attention to the longterm average as I've found it to be very accurate when determining the longterm trend of a market (even better than the same indicator on the price).
If the OBV is above the long term average, the space between OBV and average is filled green and filled red if below. The colors and defaults for the averages are:
Divergences
This is a very rudimentary adaption of the standard TradingView "Divergence Indicator". I find it helpful to have these on the radar, but do not actively use them (as in having a strategy based on OBV/price divergence). This is something that I would eventually pick up in a later version of the indicator if there is any demand for it, or I find the time to look into strategies based on this.
Comparison line
A small but very helpful addition to the indicator is a horizontal line that traces the current OBV value in real time, which makes it very easy to compare the current value of the OBV to historic values (which is a study I can highly recommend).
If you are interested to get a deeper understanding of OBV, I recommend the lecture of the above mentioned book by Granville. All the features described below are taken directly from the book or are inspired by it (deviations will be marked accordingly). If you have no prior experience with OBV, I recommend to start simple and read an easy introduction (e.g. On-Balance Volume (OBV) Definition from Investopedia) and start applying the basic concepts first before heading into the more advanced analysis of OBV fields and trends.
Markets and Timeframes
As the OBV is "just" a momentum indicator, it should be applicable to any market and timeframe.
As a long term investor, my experience is limited to the longer timeframes (primarily daily), which is also how Granville applies it. But that is most likely due to the time it was developed and the lack of lower timeframe data at that point in time. I don't see why it wouldn't be applicable to any timeframe, but cannot speak from experience here so do your own research and let me know. Likewise, I invest in the crypto markets almost exclusively and hence this is where my experience with this indicator comes from.
Feature List
As a general note before starting into the description of the individual features: I use the colors and values of the default settings of the indicator to describe it. The general look and feel obviously can be customized (and I highly recommend doing so, as this is a very visual representation of volume, and it should suit your way of looking at a chart) and I also tried to make the individual features as customizable as possible.
Also, all additions to the OBV itself can be turned off so that you're left with just the OBV line (although if that's what you want, I recommend a version of the indicator with less overhead).
Fields
Fields are defined as successive UPs or DOWNs on the OBV. An UP is any OBV reading above the last high pivot and subsequently a DOWN is any reading below the last low pivot. An UP-field is the time from the first UP after a DOWN-field to the first DOWN (not including). The same goes for a DOWN field but vice versa.
The field serves the same purpose as the OBV itself. To indicate momentum direction. I haven't found much use for the fields themselves other than serving as a more smoothed view on the current momentum. The real power of the fields emerges when starting to determine larger trends of off them (as you will see soon).
Therefor the fields are displayed on the indicator as background colors (UP = green, DOWN = red), but only very faint to not distract too much from the other parts of the indicator.
Major Volume Trend
The major volume trend - from which Granville says, it's the one that tends to precede price - is determined as the succession of the highest highs and lowest lows of UP and DOWN fields. It is represented by the colors of the numbers printed on the highs and lows of the fields.
The trend to be "Rising" is defined as the highest high of an UP field being higher than the highest high of the last UP field and the lowest low of the last DOWN field being higher than the lowest low of the prior DOWN field. And vice versa for a "Falling" trend. If the trend does not have a rising or falling pattern, it is said to be "Doubtful". The colors are indicated as follows:
- Rising = green
- Falling = red
- Doubtful = blue
ZigZag Swing count
The swing count is determined by counting the number of swings within a trend (as described above) and is represented by the numbers above the highs and lows of the fields. It determines the length and thus strength of a trend.
In general there are two ways to determine the count. The first one is by counting the swings between pivots and the second one by counting the swings between highs and lows of fields. This indicator represents the SECOND one as it represents the longer term trend (which I'm more interested in as it denotes a longer term perspective).
However, the ZigZag count has three applications on the OBV. The "simple ZigZag" is a count of three swings which mainly tells you that the shorter term momentum of the market has changed and the current trend is weakening. This doesn't mean it will reverse. A count of three downs is still healthy if it occurs on a strong uptrend (and vice versa) and it should primarily serve as a sign of caution. If the count increases beyond three, the last trend is weakening considerably, and you should probably take action.
The second count to look out for is five swings - the "compound ZigZag". If this goes hand in hand with breaking a major support/resistance on the OBV it can offer a buying/selling opportunity in the direction of the trend. Otherwise, there's a good chance that this is a reversal signal.
The third count is nine. To quote Granville directly: "there is a very strong tendency FOR MAJOR REVERSAL OF REND AFTER THE NINTH SWING" (emphasis by the author). This is something I look out for and get cautious about, although I have found signal to be weak in an overextended market. I have observed counts of 10 and even 12 which did not result in a major reversal and the market trended further after a short period of time. This is still a major sign of caution and should not be taken lightly.
Moving average
Although Granville talks only briefly about averages and the only mention of a specific one is the 10MA, I found moving averages to be a very valuable addition to my analysis of the OBV movements.
The indicator uses three Exponential Moving Averages. A long term one to determine the general direction and two short term ones to determine the momentum of the trend. Especially for the latter two, keep in mind that those are very indirect as they are indicators of an indicator anyway and I they should not necessarily be used as support or resistance (although that might sometimes be helpful). I recommend paying most attention to the longterm average as I've found it to be very accurate when determining the longterm trend of a market (even better than the same indicator on the price).
If the OBV is above the long term average, the space between OBV and average is filled green and filled red if below. The colors and defaults for the averages are:
- long term, 144EMA, green
- short term 1, 21EMA, blue
- short term 2, 55EMA, red
Divergences
This is a very rudimentary adaption of the standard TradingView "Divergence Indicator". I find it helpful to have these on the radar, but do not actively use them (as in having a strategy based on OBV/price divergence). This is something that I would eventually pick up in a later version of the indicator if there is any demand for it, or I find the time to look into strategies based on this.
Comparison line
A small but very helpful addition to the indicator is a horizontal line that traces the current OBV value in real time, which makes it very easy to compare the current value of the OBV to historic values (which is a study I can highly recommend).
Open-source script
In true TradingView spirit, the author of this script has published it open-source, so traders can understand and verify it. Cheers to the author! You may use it for free, but reuse of this code in publication is governed by House rules. You can favorite it to use it on a chart.
Disclaimer
The information and publications are not meant to be, and do not constitute, financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice or recommendations supplied or endorsed by TradingView. Read more in the Terms of Use.