Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD)

Cumulative volume delta adds the bar-by-bar aggression into a line, the way OBV adds signed volume. A rising CVD says the net of aggressive prints has been on the ask. Comparing the line with price is the whole method. If both rise, aggression and price agree. If price rises and CVD does not, the advance is happening without net lifting, which can mean offers are being pulled or the move is thin. That divergence is a prompt to look at the footprint, not a completed short thesis. CVD is only as good as the delta underneath it. A bad aggressor flag cumulates into a confident-looking wrong line.

Choose the reset on purpose. A session CVD answers "who has been aggressive today?" A swing CVD anchored at a low answers "who has been aggressive since this trend began?" Leaving a platform default you have not checked means you do not know the question. Smooth the urge to read every wiggle. CVD will diverge for a few bars constantly. The divergences that matter last through a swing high or a swing low and are visible against a level.

Price making a higher low while session CVD makes a higher low, or a lower low in price against a higher low in CVD, says aggressive selling is not confirming the dip. At support, that is a bullish divergence. It still needs the level to hold. CVD can diverge and then the bids can vanish.

Price at a high with CVD below its prior high says the new high is not being paid for with net ask lifting. That is the bearish divergence. In a strong trend, CVD can "diverge" for a long time while price grinds. Divergence against a trend is a reason to tighten management, not automatically a reason to fade.

Treating CVD and price divergence as a signal generator with no level, no higher timeframe, and no check on the feed. Also resetting CVD in the middle of a session by accident, which draws a dramatic turn that is only your anchor. And stacking CVD on top of OBV as if the two disagreements were independent evidence. They can both be restating the same up closes if the feed's delta is itself close-signed.

Without true bid and ask, CVD should not be trusted, whatever the platform plots. Even with a good feed, iceberg orders, mid-point matches, and auctions are classified poorly. CVD is a pressure estimate for liquid, electronically traded markets. It is not a record of informed flow, and it does not know the size you still have to exit.