CandelaCharts - Volume Imbalance (VI) 📝 Overview
Volume Imbalance occurs when there’s a noticeable gap between the bodies of two consecutive candlesticks, with no overlap between them. While the wicks of the candles might intersect, the candle bodies remain entirely separate. This phenomenon often signifies that the algorithm driving market activity did not evenly distribute prices between these two levels, leaving behind a small Fair Value Gap (FVG).
A Bullish Volume Imbalance forms when the body of a green candlestick gaps above the previous candle’s body, with no overlap, indicating strong upward momentum and insufficient sell-side liquidity.
A Bearish Volume Imbalance forms when the body of a red candlestick gaps below the previous candle’s body, with no overlap, signaling intense downward pressure and a lack of buy-side liquidity.
This indicator can automatically identify volume imbalances by scanning candlestick patterns and detecting gaps between consecutive candle bodies. These volume imbalances act as price magnets, often attracting the market back to fill the gap before resuming its original direction. Recognizing and leveraging these gaps can be a powerful tool in technical analysis for predicting price movements.
📦 Features
MTF
Mitigation
Consequent Encroachment
Threshold
Hide Overlap
Advanced Styling
⚙️ Settings
Show: Controls whether FVGs are displayed on the chart.
Show Last: Sets the number of FVGs you want to display.
Length: Determines the length of each FVG.
Mitigation: Highlights when an FVG has been touched, using a different color without marking it as invalid.
Timeframe: Specifies the timeframe used to detect FVGs.
Threshold: Sets the minimum gap size required for FVG detection on the chart.
Show Mid-Line: Configures the midpoint line's width and style within the FVG. (Consequent Encroachment - CE)
Show Border: Defines the border width and line style of the FVG.
Hide Overlap: Removes overlapping FVGs from view.
Extend: Extends the FVG length to the current candle.
Elongate: Fully extends the FVG length to the right side of the chart.
⚡️ Showcase
Simple
Mitigated
Bordered
Consequent Encroachment
Extended
🚨 Alerts
This script provides alert options for all signals.
Bearish Signal
A bearish alert triggers when a red candlestick gaps below the previous body, signaling downward pressure.
Bullish Signal
A bullish alert triggers when a green candlestick gaps above the previous body, indicating upward momentum.
⚠️ Disclaimer
Trading involves significant risk, and many participants may incur losses. The content on this site is not intended as financial advice and should not be interpreted as such. Decisions to buy, sell, hold, or trade securities, commodities, or other financial instruments carry inherent risks and are best made with guidance from qualified financial professionals. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Volumeimbalance
Volume IQOverview
Volume IQ is meant to be the ‘intelligent volume distribution analyzer’ that takes much of the work of interpreting volume profiles off of your shoulders. It attempts to ‘do the technical analysis’ of volume data for you, with its capstone feature being "Trading Action Zones": ranges on the chart whose placement are determined by high and low volume nodes and sentiment analysis, and their adapting range affected by current volatility. These zones are meant to offer practical levels for potential entries, exits, targets, and stops while trading. These zones are the cherry on top of other useful and original features like visuals for grouping areas of similar buy/sell bias.
Originality and Usefulness
Volume IQ stands out for its originality by offering a data-driven approach to interpreting volume profiles and presenting its analysis on the chart. Unlike traditional volume profiles, Volume IQ automates much of the volume analysis process, helping traders identify potential opportunities and key trading areas with minimal effort. Its unique "Trading Action Zones" leverage high and low volume nodes, sentiment analysis, and current volatility to highlight practical levels for entries, exits, targets, and stops. Additionally, the tool provides grouped bias visuals, gradient coloring, and flexible customization options, allowing traders to gain a clearer understanding of market sentiment and structure. By simplifying complex volume data into actionable insights, Volume IQ provides a valuable and efficient resource for charting on TradingView.
The ‘Capstone’ Feature:
Trading ‘Action Zones’: Potential areas to take trading action based on built-in interpretations of high-volume nodes, low-volume nodes, and overarching chart sentiment (whose calculation is described below), and their interplay. Categorized by tiers - with Tier 2 zones intended as potential entry areas, and Tier 1 zones for exits or adds. These zones can also present logical areas to consider targets and stops, for example placing a stop loss in a Tier 1 sell zone below price where there is a series of low-volume nodes and potentially not much support. These zones help you quickly identify potential areas on the chart to ‘take action’.
Key Features:
Level and Block Biases: By estimating buying and selling volume, as well as leveraging intrabar data, the Volume IQ profile provides detailed buy/sell sentiment at individual price levels. It then groups together consecutive price levels with the same bias into what we call ‘Block Biases’ making it easy to determine larger price areas with distinct buying or selling pressure.
Chart Sentiment Analysis: A ‘continuously optimizing algorithm’ configured to find high average runups after a sentiment switch powers what we call ‘bias guidelines’ which border the Volume IQ profile and influence the determination of Action Zones. This algorithm is based on comparing many combinations of volume-weighted trends, largely based on smoothed volume weighted moving averages, on each bar, to ensure that the approach with the highest average runup amongst the combinations is used.
Zones of Control: A gradient-coloring approach to the profile highlighst areas of influence at a glance, making it easier to focus on key price levels.
Broad Compatibility: Works across all chart timeframes and market types - so long as volume data and OHLC candle data is available.
Highly Customizable: Configure features to align with your trading preferences and workflow. Show them all, or pick and choose the ones you want.
Settings
Use a Color Theme: Toggle between our predefined color themes or customize your own.
Style: Select your preferred color theme (e.g., "TI Fusion").
Colors (When Not Using a Theme): Customize primary, secondary, and background colors for your own non-theme styling.
Gradient Coloring: Enable or disable gradient shading of the profile for visual enhancement of zones with high control and low control.
Action Zones: Turn trading action zones on or off to highlight key trading levels.
Time Staggering: Enabling this option will simply ‘stagger’ the display of action zones horizontally. Zones closer to price will be placed leftwards, and as they become more distant from price, they will be ‘staggered out’ rightwards, to give an intuitive feel for the time it may take for price to reach these zones.
Tier Labels: Enable or disable the ‘tier labels’ (1 square for Tier 1, 2 squares for Tier 2) for action zones.
Bias Blocks: Toggle the display of grouped buy/sell bias blocks.
Extend: Choose how the bias blocks are displayed: “Left” to stretch them from the end to the beginning of the histogram, “Right” to extend from the end outwards, and “Across” to extend from the beginning to outwards past the end, enveloping the bias and volume count labels.
Opacity: Adjust the transparency level of bias blocks (0–100).
Level Bias Labels: Turn on/off labels for individual price level biases.
Bias Guidelines: Enable the visual guidelines for bias levels which border the profile.
Volume Counts: Toggle volume count labels for each of the profile’s price levels.
Split Buy/Sell Volume: Enable separate display of buy and sell volume for each level (buy volume on the left, sell volume on the right).
Font Size: Adjust the font size for these labels.
Histogram Display: Choose the display option for the histogram bars of the profile themselves: "Full View" will display the profile, and “None” will hide it.
BG Shading Logic: Adjust the background shading logic for the display: “Neutral” will use the ‘Neutral Color’ from your color theme to put some emphasis around high and low volume nodes, while “None” will remove any background shading.
Detail: This option allows you to set the granularity of the volume data used: “Bar Data” will simply use the bar data from the chart timeframe, while “Intrabar Data” will attempt to use bar data from a lower timeframe. Please note that using intrabar data may not be available with your TradingView subscription on some timeframes, and also that using intrabar data may increase calculation time.
Data Request: Choose the lookback for the volume distribution: "Long-term" will look back 500 bars, and “Short-Term” will halve this.
# of Levels: Specify the number of levels/rows to display for visualizing the distribution.
Engulfing Pattern & Impulse [UAlgo]The Engulfing Pattern & Impulse is a tool designed for technical traders who utilize price action and volume analysis to assess market trends and potential reversals. This indicator identifies two powerful trading signals: Engulfing Patterns and Volume Impulses, which are essential components for evaluating potential bullish or bearish market momentum.
Engulfing Patterns are classic candlestick formations often associated with reversals or trend continuations, depending on the overall trend context. This indicator highlights both bullish and bearish engulfing patterns based on configurable criteria such as trend detection settings, comparison with average body size, and a customizable body multiplier for validation. The Volume Impulse feature signals moments of significant volume compared to historical levels, which often precede substantial price movements. Together, these features provide traders with a versatile tool for better timing entry and exit points.
The indicator also offers an adaptive trend detection system, allowing traders to choose from multiple methods (e.g., SMA50 or SMA50/SMA200 combinations) to assess the trend context, making it ideal for various market conditions.
🔶Key Features
Engulfing Pattern Detection: Identifies bullish and bearish engulfing patterns with customizable parameters, including body length and average size comparison.
Configurable trend basis: Choose between SMA50 or SMA50 with SMA200 to define trend direction.
Body size multiplier: Adjust the size threshold for valid engulfing patterns, providing flexibility based on market conditions.
Volume Impulse Signal: Highlights volume spikes that meet or exceed a specified multiplier, which can indicate increased buying or selling interest.
Customizable volume period and multiplier: Allows you to tailor the volume impulse detection based on the instrument’s average volume behavior.
Trend Detection Options: Select different trend detection methods to suit various trading styles and instruments.
SMA50-based detection: Classifies the trend based on the position of price relative to the 50-period SMA.
SMA50 and SMA200 combination: Incorporates a dual-moving average approach, classifying trends based on the relationship between price, SMA50, and SMA200.
Enhanced Visualization: Distinguishes bullish and bearish signals with customizable colors, providing clear and immediate visual cues for easy interpretation.
Custom label colors: Allows you to set distinct colors for bullish, bearish, and neutral signals for quick identification.
Pattern filtering: Enable or disable specific patterns (Bullish, Bearish, or Both) based on your trading preferences.
🔶 Interpreting Indicator
Bullish Engulfing Pattern: Indicates a potential bullish reversal in a downtrend. This signal occurs when a white candlestick with a body size exceeding a specified multiplier completely engulfs the previous black candlestick. The pattern will display a “BE” label below the candle if it meets the criteria, signaling potential upward momentum.
Bearish Engulfing Pattern: Indicates a potential bearish reversal in an uptrend. A black candlestick with a body size exceeding the specified multiplier fully engulfs the previous white candlestick, signaling possible downward movement. The “BE” label appears above the candle to denote this pattern.
Volume Impulse Up: Displays a “VI” label below the candle when the volume surpasses the defined multiplier, and the price closes higher than it opened, indicating strong upward buying interest.
Volume Impulse Down: Displays a “VI” label above the candle when the volume meets or exceeds the specified threshold, and the price closes lower than it opened, signaling strong selling pressure.
Indicator uses the SMA50 and SMA200 to determine trend direction due to their popularity in technical analysis as indicators of medium- and long-term trends. The SMA50 reflects the average price over the past 50 periods, providing insight into intermediate trends, while the SMA200 is often used to identify the broader trend direction. These SMAs help traders quickly assess whether the market is in an uptrend, downtrend, or consolidation phase, enhancing decision-making for both short-term and long-term strategies.
🔶 Disclaimer
Use with Caution: This indicator is provided for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. Users should exercise caution and perform their own analysis before making trading decisions based on the indicator's signals.
Not Financial Advice: The information provided by this indicator does not constitute financial advice, and the creator (UAlgo) shall not be held responsible for any trading losses incurred as a result of using this indicator.
Backtesting Recommended: Traders are encouraged to backtest the indicator thoroughly on historical data before using it in live trading to assess its performance and suitability for their trading strategies.
Risk Management: Trading involves inherent risks, and users should implement proper risk management strategies, including but not limited to stop-loss orders and position sizing, to mitigate potential losses.
No Guarantees: The accuracy and reliability of the indicator's signals cannot be guaranteed, as they are based on historical price data and past performance may not be indicative of future results.
Volume Gaps and ImbalancesThis Pine script indicator is designed to visually depict price inefficiencies, as identified by Volume Imbalances (VI) or Gaps. A Volume Gap is a scenario where the wicks of two successive candles don’t intersect, while an Imbalance occurs when only the wicks overlap, leaving the bodies apart. These zones of inefficiency frequently act as magnets for price, with the market striving rebalance in accordance with ICT principles.
Relevance:
Volume Gaps/Imbalances are zones of highly inefficient price delivery as per ICT concepts and represent a very strong draw to price. Price will often seek to rebalance those zones to ensure efficient price delivery. Consequently, these zones can provide good targets for entries in the opposite direction or take profit targets for previous entries in the direction of the Gap/Imbalance.
How It Works:
The indicator keeps track of all Gaps/Imbalances from the beginning of the available history. It automatically removes all mitigated Gaps/Imbalances, which are situations where the price has at least reached the bottom of a bullish gap or the top of a bearish gap.
On the last bar, the most recent valid gaps are highlighted with a box drawn from the start to the end of the gap. The start of a bullish gap is determined by the highest price of the previous candle’s open or close, while for bearish gaps, it’s the lowest price of the previous candle’s open or close. Conversely, the end of a bullish gap is the lowest price of the current candle’s open or close, and for bearish gaps, it’s the highest price of the current candle’s open or close.
To enhance the indicator’s speed and minimize chart noise, only the most recent gaps will be displayed, up to the limit set in the indicator settings.
Each displayed VI/GAP will indicate the size of the imbalance in ticks. For imbalances greater than 3 ticks, which represent stronger draws of liquidity, the color transparency will be reduced, and the text will be made more prominent. Volume Gaps are also marked with a 🧲 emoji for easy visual identification.
The indicator will automatically extend the boxes representing valid imbalances to the current bar for as long as the imbalance is not mitigated.
If an imbalance has been tapped, but not mitigated, the indicator will append 🚩emoji to denote that the imbalance has been partially mitigated and may no longer have as strong of a draw for price.
Configurability:
A user may configure the number of imbalances to show, the setting applies to bullish/bearish imbalances individually. This setting can be set to any value from 1 – 50.
Appearance wise, color, style and color transparency of each box representing an imbalance can be configured. The imbalance box label can be configured by setting the text size, along with the vertical & horizontal alignment.
What makes this indicator different:
Designed with high performance in mind, to reduce impact on chart render time.
Only keeps valid imbalances on the chart, with a limit on the # drawn
Indicates the size of the gap and provides visual markets to denote stronger, weaker and partially mitigated gaps
Aggressor Volume ImbalanceAggressor volume imbalance represents the ratio between market aggressor buy volume (market buy orders) and market aggressor sell volume (market sell orders). This ratio enables traders to evaluate the interest of market aggressors and whether aggressive market activity favours the price's direction.
Analysing aggressor volume is critical in understanding market sentiment and aids in identifying shifts in momentum and potential exhaustion points in the market. When the aggressor buy volume significantly exceeds the sell volume, it typically indicates strong buying interest, driving prices higher if the offer-side liquidity cannot contain it, and vice versa.
How it Works
The imbalance ratio is calculated as follows, according to the selected session timeframe (see settings):
imbalance := ((buyVolumeAccumulator - sellVolumeAccumulator)
/ (buyVolumeAccumulator + sellVolumeAccumulator)) * 100
Aggressive Volume Imbalance uses lower timeframe historical data to calculate Historical Aggressor Volume Imbalances, while live data is used for live aggressor volume imbalances.
How to Use It
You can set the indicator to use any historical data timeframe you prefer. However, it is highly recommended to use lower timeframes (e.g., 1 second), as the lower the timeframe, the more granular the data.
The indicator resets to 0% whenever a new session timeframe begins (e.g., a new day) and calculates new values for the rest of the session. This can be configured in the settings.
ICT Institutional Order Flow (fadi)ICT Institutional Order Flow indicator is intended to provide wholistic view to better analyze order flow and where price may go to next. The concept follows ICT principles.
ICT Market Structure
ICT breaks down Pivot points into three categories:
Short Term High/Low (STH/STL) is a 3 candle pattern with a low with higher low on each side (STL), or a high with lower high on each side (STH)
Intermediate Term High/Low (ITH/ITL) uses the calculated STH/STL and marks any STH that has lower or STH on each side, and STL that has higher STL on each side
Long Term High/Low (LTH/LTL) uses the calculated ITH/ITL and marks any ITH that has lower or ITH on each side, and ITL that has higher ITL on each side
Note: ICT also states that if a STH wicks into and closes (almost?) a FVG, he marks it as ITH even if it does not have STH on reach side. This scenario is not covered by this indicator
Liquidity
liquidity is usually present under pivot points. The more prominent the pivot point, the more likely higher values liquidity pools reside under/above it. Liquidity under ITL and LTL as an example, will have better indication of which liquidity the price may seek next.
Displacement
Displacement registers above average move in the price resulting in strong visible move. If requiring a FVG is enabled (in settings), then the displacement could possibly (but never guaranteed) be used to visually recognize a move as it develops.
Full Credit: The calculation for Displacement is derived from TFO's Visualizing Displacement
Imbalances
Imbalances can come in different forms. This indicator identifies three type of imbalances:
1. FVG
2. Volume Imbalance
3. Open Gaps
Imbalances completes the picture by help visualize strong moves, where possible pivot points may develop, and how to enter or manage a trade.
ICT HTF Candles (fadi)Plotting a configurable higher timeframe on current chart's timeframe helps visualize price movement without changing timeframes. It also plots FVG and Volume Imbalance on the higher timeframe for easier visualization.
With ICT concepts, we usually wait for HTF break of structure and then find an entry on a lower timeframe. With this indicator, we can set it to the HTF and watch the develop of price action until the break of structure happens. We can then take an entry on the current timeframe.
Settings
HTF Higher timeframe to plot
Number of candles to display The number of higher timeframe candles to display to the right of current price action
Body/Border/Wick The candle colors for the body, border, and wick
Padding from current candles The distance from current timeframe's candles
Space between candles Increase / decrease the candle spacing
Candle width The size of the candles
Imbalance
Fair Value Gap Show / Hide FVG on the higher timeframe
Volume Imbalance Show / Hide Volume Imbalance on the higher timeframe
Trace
Trace lines Extend the OHLC lines of the higher timeframe and the source of each
Label Show/Hide the price levels of the OHLC
ICT Imbalances (fadi)ICT Imbalances focuses on highlighting the imbalances described by ICT Se imbalances usually act as a price magnet where price tend to revisit to mitigate the imbalance and can act as support and resistance.
It is important to understand that, while they do act as price magnet, they are not all places for entries. What they do provide, is a price understanding and possible areas of reversal based on the bigger picture and trading strategy.
There are four types of imbalances covered by this indicator:
Fair Value Gap (FVG)
Fair value is when, at any given price, both buy and sell sides are offered. For every up move, there is a down move. Fair value Gap is an imbalance where price moved too quickly before offering both buy side and sell side at a given price.
Implied Fair Value Gap (IFVG)
Implied Fair Value Gap is when the first and third candle have overlapping large wicks. The IFVG is the area between the half point of first and third candles.
Volume Imbalance (V.I.)
Volume imbalance is when the price creates a gap between the close of one candle and the open of the following candle with overlapping wicks.
Gap
An area where price gaps up or down leaving a void where price did not trade in. This is most common on higher timeframes and when one day ends and the next day begins.
Settings
ICT Imbalances provides the following options
- Show or hide specific imbalance to keep the chart clean
- Background color of the box highlighting the imbalance
- Box width in the form of how many candles the box extends to
- Show or Hide the Half Mark of the box, only applies to FVG and IFVG
- Show or hide a Legend that explains which colors represents which imbalance
Smart Money Add-Ons [TFO]Supplementing my “Smart Money Essentials ” indicator, these add-ons provide some more commonly used “Smart Money Concepts,” including SMT Divergence, and HTF POI, and open price lines for added confluence.
Smart Money Technique (SMT) Divergence is meant to annotate divergence between closely correlated assets. Take $ES_F and $NQ_F for example (S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures). These two names normally track each other very closely, but if $ES_F is steadily rising towards a large institutional level and making higher highs, while $NQ_F is approaching a similarly important level and making lower highs on that same timeframe, this would indicate a divergence between the two assets that could foreshadow a “Smart Money Reversal.”
Open price lines can provide intraday levels of interest from important times of day, where the defaults are set to midnight (12:00 AM), 8:30 AM for news releases, and 9:30 AM New York market open (New York local time). The open prices at these times can often act as support and resistance when other confluence factors are present. Higher timeframe points of interest (HTF POI) are also helpful to remain mindful of imbalances and other inefficiencies in which lower timeframe price action may create some reversal structure.
Weekly Opening Gap (cryptonnnite)In the context of general equities, opening price that is substantially higher or lower than the previous day's closing price, usually because of some extraordinarily positive or negative news. Opening gap using as a potential target which market usually trades to.
Imbalance Detector [LuxAlgo]This indicator detects and highlights market imbalances alongside a dashboard returning information about their frequency of occurrence and their fill percentage. Imbalances included in this script are Fair Value Gaps (FVG), Opening Gaps (OG) and Volume Imbalances (VI).
Alerts are available for the occurrences of all market imbalances.
Settings
Imbalances
Each imbalance has the same settings layout:
Imbalance: Enable/disable the detection of the specific imbalance.
Min Width: If enabled, requires the imbalance area width to be greater than the specified value. This minimum width can be expressed in points, percentages or ATR multiples.
Extend: Extend imbalances by a specified number of bars.
Dashboard
Show Dashboard: Enable/disable the dashboard on the chart.
Dashboard Location: Location of the dashboard on the chart.
Dashboard Size: Size of the dashboard.
Usage
Market imbalances are part of the many concepts available to price action traders and highlight areas where there is a disparity between supply and demand.
It is common to see price come back to these areas and traders often use them as supports and resistances but also as targets.
Details
The script can detect three distinct types of imbalances described below.
Fair Value Gaps
Fair Value Gaps (FVG) are three candle formations characterized by a gap between the wicks of the non-adjacent candles in the formation.
A bullish FVG is characterized by a gap between the current price low and the 2 bars anterior price high, and a bearish FVG is characterized by a gap between the current price high and the 2 bars anterior price low.
Opening Gaps
Opening Gaps (OG) are imbalances characterized by non-existent activity within a specific price range.
A bullish OG occurs when the current price low is greater than the previous high, a bearish OG occurs when price high is lower than the previous price low.
Opening Gaps primarily occur in closing markets, as such they are less common in the cryptocurrency market.
Most of the time an Opening Gap will also be accompanied by a Fair Value Gap, in order to avoid clutter the indicator will not detect Fair Value Gaps if Opening Gaps are enabled and if an Opening Gap has been detected
Volume Imbalances
Volume Imbalances (VI) are characterized by a price discontinuity between the opening price and previous close, but unlike Opening Gaps we do not see nonexistent activity within a certain price range.
A bullish VI occur when both the opening and closing prices are superior to the previous closing price, with the current price low overlapping the previous price high. A bearish VI occur when both the opening and closing prices are inferior to the previous closing price, with the current price high overlapping the previous price low.
Because Volume Imbalances can occur excessively on markets with frequent gaps, we make use of an additional condition for filtering out less significant imbalances. Bullish VI's will require the previous price high to be lower than the opening price, while bullish VI's will require the previous price low to be higher than the opening price.
ICT - GAPs and Volume Imbalance
GAPs
Gaps are areas on chart where the price have moved sharply up or down, with no trading in between. Gaps often fill, but they don't have to.
Volume Imbalance
Volume imbalance - determined using 2 candles
Bullish Volume Imbalance - area between the close of 1st candle and the open of 2nd candle
Bearish Volume Imbalance - area between the close of 1st candle and the open of 2nd candle
How to use the indicator:-
When you find imbalance in volume or a GAP in the chart, you may expect price to rebalance it before continuation.
Importantly, GAPs/Imbalances do not always fill. Traders should never assume that a gap/imbalance will fill without understanding the reasons for the gap and monitoring trading activity around the gap.
Pair it with your current bias for better results.
