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Money Flow Volume — Volume, in its own panel below the chart.
What Money Flow Volume measures
The value is the money flow multiplier — the close's position in the range rescaled to between −1 and +1 — multiplied by the bar's total volume. It answers what a cumulative line erases by construction: whether a rising accumulation line owes its gain to steady pressure or to two exceptional bars. When a bar's high equals its low the value is genuinely undefined, a zero divided by zero, and no point is emitted at all — unlike the A/D line, where a zero contribution is the only way to keep the running total intact.
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:
Money Flow Volume de la barre — le TERME de l'A/D, NON cumulé : value = ((close − low) − (high − close)) / (high − low) × volume POURQUOI : l'A/D montre le total, cet histogramme montre la CONTRIBUTION de chaque barre. C'est ce qui permet de voir qu'une ligne d'accumulation qui monte tranquillement doit en réalité tout son gain à deux barres, ou au contraire à une pression régulière — une information que le cumul efface par construction. RANGE NUL → AUCUN point (et non « 0 », contrairement à l'A/D). Ce n'est pas une incohérence : dans l'A/D, « contribution 0 » est la seule façon de ne pas casser un accumulateur ; ici la valeur de la barre est GENUINEMENT indéfinie (0/0) et aucune chaîne ne dépend d'elle — le contrat `HistogramPoint` (pas de trou possible) impose alors de ne pas émettre de point du tout. N.B. anti-collision : rien à voir avec `mfi` (momentum.ts), le Money Flow INDEX, un oscillateur borné 0-100 calculé sur le prix typique et le ratio des flux positifs/négatifs.
How to read it
- Bar height is volume scaled by close position, so the tallest bars are those that combined heavy volume with a close near an extreme of their range.
- A run of same-signed bars of moderate height describes a different market than one enormous bar followed by nothing, even when the cumulative line looks identical.
- Sign flips from bar to bar mean closes are alternating within their ranges. Inside a balanced range this is ordinary and carries little information.
- Use the pane to audit the A/D line: find the bars responsible for a segment of the cumulative move, then read those bars in the footprint.
- Missing bars are not zeros — they are bars whose high equalled their low.
Parameters and defaults
Positive and negative bars use separate colours, teal (#26a69a) and red (#ef5350) by default. Smoothing stays at 1, keeping each bar's own contribution visible; raising it blends neighbouring bars, which works against the purpose of the histogram unless you are deliberately looking for a slower flow profile.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoothing | number | 1 | 1 – 200 |
What it does not show
Like every member of the Chaikin family, the sign comes from the close's position inside the range rather than from the aggressor side of the trades that filled it. Values scale with volume, so a bar printed during a high-volume hour dwarfs everything around it regardless of what happened inside it. A pane with several missing bars is telling you the instrument barely moved, not that the data is broken. Note also that this is Money Flow Volume and not the Money Flow Index: the latter is a bounded 0–100 oscillator built from typical price and the ratio of positive to negative flows.
Related indicators
- Volume — Volume
- Buy/Sell Volume — Volume
- Average Trade Size — Volume
- Volume ROC % — Volume
- Relative Volume — Volume
- Trade Count — Volume
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Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between Money Flow Volume and the Money Flow Index?
- Money Flow Volume is a per-bar quantity: the close's position in the range multiplied by the bar's volume, plotted as a histogram with no upper bound. The Money Flow Index is a separate oscillator bounded between 0 and 100, computed from typical price and the ratio of positive to negative money flows over a window. Despite the similar names they are different calculations.
- Why does the Money Flow Volume histogram skip some bars?
- A bar whose high equals its low has no range, which makes the money flow multiplier a zero divided by zero. Rather than plot an invented value, the indicator emits no point for that bar. The cumulative A/D line treats the same case as a zero contribution, because an accumulator cannot carry a hole.
- How does Money Flow Volume relate to the A/D line?
- The A/D line is the running sum of Money Flow Volume from the first loaded bar onward. Plotting the term itself shows which individual bars built a given stretch of that line — information the cumulative view necessarily hides.