Cumulative delta (CVD)
Cumulative delta, or CVD, is the running sum of bar delta from a chosen starting point, usually the session open. It shows whether aggressive buyers or sellers have dominated over the session so far, which price alone can hide.
Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026
How it is computed
Each bar has a delta: ask volume minus bid volume. Cumulative delta adds those deltas bar after bar. The curve rises when aggressive buying dominates a bar and falls when aggressive selling does. Its level at any time is the net aggression since the anchor.
- CVD[i] = CVD[i−1] + delta[i], starting from zero at the anchor.
- The anchor is a convention. In futures it is normally the CME session open; the curve resets there.
- Because it is a sum, one very large bar shifts the whole curve that follows. Look at the slope and the shape, not only the value.
How to read it
- Trend and CVD moving together: the move is being paid for by aggressors. Nothing to add.
- Price at a new high while CVD is lower than at the previous high: buyers are less aggressive on this leg. Divergence, worth checking with the footprint.
- CVD making new lows while price holds: sellers keep hitting bids and are being absorbed. It is often read as reversal context; it turns into a trap when the bids finally pull.
- A flat CVD during a range says the auction is balanced; a break with flat CVD is suspicious.
In Senzoukria
The pane indicator Session CVD accumulates total delta and resets at every CME session open at 17:00 Chicago time, on historical sessions as well as the current one. CVD Slope measures its inclination over a window of bars that must stay inside one session, and CVD Divergence marks bars where the CVD and price moved in opposite directions over that window. The scripting editor ships a Session cumulative delta template with the same reset rule.
The Study guide panel of the indicator library is explicit about coverage: delta is accumulated from the first loaded bar, so a partially loaded session gives a partial cumulative delta. A reset boundary in the data does not prove that every earlier trade was loaded.
Common mistakes
- Comparing CVD values across days. After a reset the number restarts; only the shape within a session is comparable.
- Anchoring at the start of the chart. Scrolling changes the anchor and therefore the curve.
- Treating a CVD divergence as an entry. It is a question about who is aggressive, answered by looking at the footprint at that price.
- Reading CVD on bars without aggressor data. Those bars contribute nothing, and the curve simply stops being meaningful.
Related
- Cumulative delta explained
- Session CVD indicator
- CVD Slope indicator
- CVD anchor and session reset
- Delta divergence
This page in other languages
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between delta and cumulative delta?
- Delta describes one bar: ask volume minus bid volume within it. Cumulative delta adds every bar's delta from an anchor onwards, so it describes the session. A single bar can have positive delta while the cumulative curve keeps falling.
- Does cumulative delta reset?
- It depends on the tool. The convention used in Senzoukria's Session CVD is a reset at each CME session open, 17:00 Chicago time, so every session starts at zero. Crypto sources reset at the UTC day boundary. A curve that never resets accumulates the whole loaded history and its level becomes hard to interpret.
- Is CVD the same as on-balance volume?
- No. On-balance volume adds or subtracts the whole bar volume depending on the close direction. Cumulative delta uses the aggressor side of each trade, so it can fall on an up-close bar. OBV can be computed from OHLCV; CVD cannot.