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Delta Divergence — Delta, on the price chart.
What Delta Divergence measures
The rule is fixed and applied bar by bar. If the close is strictly higher than the previous close and the bar's delta is strictly below zero, a down arrow is placed at the bar's high, because price advanced without net buying aggression behind it. If the close is strictly lower and delta strictly positive, an up arrow is placed at the bar's low. Every inequality is strict, so an unchanged close or a delta of exactly zero produces no marker, and the first bar of a series is never marked since there is no earlier close to compare with.
The formula, as implemented
This is not how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
Marqueurs de divergence prix/delta BARRE À BARRE — règle EXACTE : close[i] > close[i−1] ET delta[i] < 0 → arrow-down au HIGH de la barre (le prix monte sans agression acheteuse nette — poussée suspecte, absorption vendeuse potentielle) ; close[i] < close[i−1] ET delta[i] > 0 → arrow-up au LOW (miroir). Inégalités STRICTES partout : close inchangé OU delta = 0 → pas de marqueur. Première barre (pas de précédente) → pas de marqueur — on ne compare jamais à une barre inventée. Distinct de `delta-divergence-strength` (delta.ts) : ici des ÉVÉNEMENTS ponctuels sur le chart prix, là un score continu en pane.
How to read it
- A down arrow at a bar's high means the advance was not paid for by net aggressive buying, which can indicate selling being placed into the move.
- An up arrow at a bar's low means net buying took place while price slipped, a pattern usually discussed as absorption.
- Each arrow compares exactly two bars, so isolated markers in a choppy range carry far less weight than a cluster forming at the same price area.
- Read arrows against context such as a prior session high, a volume point of control or a visible liquidity level, not as standalone entries.
- The absence of an arrow means price and delta agreed, or one of them was exactly unchanged; it is not a confirmation of anything.
What it does not show
Comparing a single pair of bars makes the rule sensitive: in balanced conditions arrows can appear frequently, in both directions, with no consequence. The marker is binary, so a small disagreement and a large one look the same on the chart. Exact ties are excluded by design, meaning genuine but flat divergences go unmarked. Like every delta tool the rule depends on the feed labelling aggressor sides correctly, and an arrow records a past mismatch between two bars, never a forecast.
Related indicators
- Delta % — Delta
- Session CVD — Delta
- Delta momentum — Delta
- Delta min/max — Delta
- Price/Delta Divergence — Delta
- Delta % Histogram — Delta
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Frequently asked questions
- What is a delta divergence?
- A delta divergence is a bar where the direction of price and the sign of net aggressor volume contradict each other. For example, price closes higher than the previous bar while more volume traded at the bid than at the ask. It highlights an advance or a decline that the aggressive flow does not support.
- Why does a bullish arrow appear at the low of a down bar?
- The marker follows the flow, not the price. When the close falls while the bar's delta is positive, aggressive buyers were active against a falling price, so the marker is drawn as bullish and placed at the bar's low where the disagreement is visible. The CVD divergence tool follows the same convention deliberately, so that two indicators never mark the same situation in opposite directions.
- How many bars does this delta divergence indicator compare?
- Two: the current bar and the one immediately before it. The close of the current bar is compared with the previous close, and the delta used is the current bar's own delta. Divergences measured over a longer window, five bars by default, are handled by the CVD-based divergence tool rather than by this one.