Delta Acceleration Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
Delta Acceleration plots the change in delta from one bar to the next: the current bar's delta minus the previous bar's. It separates flow that is intensifying from flow that is merely continuing at the same rate.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
Delta Acceleration ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Tape & flow group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn in its own panel below the chart.
What Delta Acceleration measures
Delta is buying minus selling within a bar; this indicator takes the difference between consecutive values, with a lag fixed at one bar, and draws it as a signed histogram. Two bars at plus 200 each produce zero acceleration, because the pressure was steady; plus 50 followed by plus 200 produces a strongly positive value, because the buying intensified. No session anchoring applies: the output is a difference between two bar aggregates rather than a running total, so there is nothing to anchor, unlike cumulative delta. The first bar of a series has no value, because there is no previous bar to compare it with.
The formula, as implemented
This is not a description of how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
Accélération du delta — dérivée seconde du flux : value = delta(t) − delta(t−1) POURQUOI : le delta dit la pression, son accélération dit si elle S'INTENSIFIE ou s'essouffle. Deux barres à +200 de suite = pression stable (accélération nulle) ; +50 puis +200 = les acheteurs montent le ton. C'est le signal qui précède les cassures, et il est invisible sur l'histogramme de delta seul. Convention : lag FIXE d'une barre et sortie HISTOGRAMME SIGNÉE — à ne pas confondre avec `delta-momentum` (delta.ts), qui est un ROC paramétrable en ligne (défaut N=5). Pas de reset de séance : c'est une DIFFÉRENCE de deux agrégats de barre, pas un cumul — rien à ancrer (le CVD, lui, est ancré). Première barre → PAS de point : on ne compare jamais à une barre inventée.
How to read it
- The sign shows the direction in which pressure changed, not the direction of the flow itself. A negative bar can follow strong buying that simply eased.
- Zero means stable pressure, which is an observation in its own right: flow continued at the rate of the previous bar.
- Repeated same-sign bars describe pressure building over several bars, the pattern this indicator exists to expose and the one a plain delta histogram flattens.
- A sharp reversal in acceleration while delta stays positive says the push is losing intensity before it loses direction.
- Since the value is a difference of two bars, a single extreme print often reflects an unusually quiet previous bar; check both bars before reading anything into it.
Parameters and defaults
The one-bar lag belongs to the definition and is not adjustable; for a configurable lookback, the delta momentum measure covers that case with a rate of change over 5 bars by default. Positive and negative bars take their own colours. Smoothing is 1 out of the box, leaving the histogram raw — averaging a difference series reduces its spikiness and also its point, since the spikes are the acceleration events.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoothing | number | 1 | 1 – 200 |
What it does not show
A difference of two bars is noisy by construction, and the series changes sign frequently in ordinary two-sided trade. It inherits everything delta depends on, including aggressor-side classification, and it has no notion of price, so intensifying flow into a level looks identical to intensifying flow into open space. Bar boundaries dominate the result: the same trades split differently across two bars produce a different acceleration. The first bar of the chart has no value.
Using it in Senzoukria
Add it from the Indicators panel of any footprint chart or candle chart. It runs on futures data from Rithmic or Databento and on crypto pairs from Binance and Bybit, on the same engine — the calculation does not change with the venue, only the data feeding it does. Market data subscriptions are billed by the provider, separately from the app.
Related indicators
- Tape Speed — Tape & flow
- Diagonal Imbalances — Tape & flow
- Stacked Imbalances — Tape & flow
- Absorption Score — Tape & flow
- Unfinished Auctions — Tape & flow
- Effort vs Result — Tape & flow
See the full indicator library, or start with the order flow guide if you are new to reading aggression, delta and absorption.
Frequently asked questions
- What is delta acceleration in orderflow?
- It is the change in delta between two consecutive bars — this bar's buying minus selling, less the previous bar's. Delta tells you which side was pressing; acceleration tells you whether that pressure grew or eased. A steady stream of identical deltas produces an acceleration of zero.
- How does delta acceleration differ from delta momentum?
- Delta acceleration uses a fixed one-bar lag and is drawn as a signed histogram. Delta momentum is a rate of change over a configurable window, five bars by default, drawn as a line. One reacts to the immediately preceding bar, the other to a longer stretch of them.
- Why is there no delta acceleration value on the first bar?
- Because the calculation needs a previous bar to subtract from. Rather than compare against an assumed starting value, which would invent a first reading, the first bar is left without a point.