Indicators: volume (histogram, buy/sell, trade size, RVOL)
The base Volume group contains six pane studies built on the bar aggregate: Volume, Buy/Sell Volume, Average Trade Size, Volume ROC %, Relative Volume and Trade Count. Bar volume is the backend sum of buy and sell per level, consumed as is.
Senzoukria · Documentation · Updated September 2026
Where to find it
- Where
- Chart toolbar → Indicators → group "Library · Volume"
- Target
- Pane for all six studies
- Bar volume
- totalVolume aggregated by the backend (Σ buy + sell over levels)
- Default RVOL period
- 20 preceding bars
What it does
Volume is a histogram signed by the direction of the close: close ≥ open emits +volume with the up color, close < open emits −volume with the down color. The sign is only the color channel of the histogram shape, so bearish bars appear below the zero baseline; a doji counts as bullish, the same rule as the candle body renderer. Buy/Sell Volume draws two lines, the sums of buy and sell volume over the usable levels of each bar; a bar with volume but no level split returns nothing rather than two zeros.
Average Trade Size is totalVolume / tradeCount, empty when the count is zero. Volume ROC % is the percent change of volume over N bars, empty when the reference is zero. Relative Volume divides the bar volume by the SMA of the N preceding bars (window [i−N, i−1]), so the current bar never dilutes its own reference; 1.0 means normal volume. Trade Count plots the raw number of trades the source reported for the bar.
Settings
| Study | Setting | Default (range) | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume | Up color / Down color | green / red | Histogram colors by close direction |
| Volume | Smoothing | 1 (1–200) | Optional SMA over the histogram; 1 = raw values |
| Buy/Sell Volume | Buy color / Sell color | green / red | Colors of the two lines |
| Buy/Sell Volume | Smoothing | 1 (1–200) | Optional SMA of each line |
| Average Trade Size | Color / Smoothing | yellow / 1 | Line color; optional SMA |
| Volume ROC % | Period | 1 (1–200) | Bars between the current and reference volume |
| Relative Volume | SMA period | 20 (1–500) | Number of preceding bars in the baseline |
| Trade Count | Color / Smoothing | gray / 1 | Line color; optional SMA |
How to use it
Enable a study from the Library groups of the Indicators panel and, if the raw series is hard to read bar by bar, raise Smoothing. The default of 1 disables it and returns the exact series that shipped before the setting existed; a missing point stays missing and never feeds the smoothing window as a zero.
Relative Volume and Volume ROC % compare a bar with earlier bars of the same chart. Changing the bar type (time, tick, volume, range) changes what a bar means, so compare like with like. Average Trade Size and Trade Count depend on what the source identifies as an execution; the Study guide card states this as a source-dependent measure.
Limits and pitfalls
- The signed Volume histogram is a rendering choice: an always-positive histogram colored per bar would need a color per point, which the histogram shape does not carry.
- Buy/Sell Volume needs the bid × ask split from the source; an OHLCV-only history returns no point for those bars.
- Aggregated executions do not establish the size of an individual participant's order; Average Trade Size is a ratio, not a tape reading.
- Zero references produce a gap: 0/0 is not 0 %.
- Market data is billed by the provider; these studies only reorganise what the chart already loaded.
Related pages
- Volume flow (OBV, CMF, Force Index)
- Delta indicators
- Learn: volume profile explained
- Relative Volume study
- Buy/Sell Volume study
- Footprint chart
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Frequently asked questions
- Why are down bars drawn below zero in the Volume study?
- The histogram shape colors by sign. To color bearish bars differently, their value is negated, which places them under the baseline. Read the absolute height as the volume.
- Does Relative Volume include the current bar in its average?
- No. The baseline is the simple mean of the N bars before the current one, so a large bar cannot lower its own ratio.