Volume Divergence Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
Volume Divergence marks a bar that makes a new high for its lookback window while trading less volume than any bar in that window. It flags an extension in price made without a matching increase in participation.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
Volume Divergence ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Tape & flow group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn on the price chart.
What Volume Divergence measures
The rule is exact and applies in one direction only: a marker appears on bar i when its high is strictly greater than every high of the lookback bars before it, and its volume is strictly lower than every volume of those same bars. Both comparisons are strict, so matching a previous high or a previous low in volume does not qualify. The window covers the bars strictly before the current one, which prevents a bar from becoming its own reference, and no marker is produced until a full window exists. The name mentions delta, but the rule uses neither delta nor per-level data: it reads bar highs and bar volume only, which makes it independent of tick size. The marker is a down arrow placed at the bar's high, where the pattern is read.
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:
Divergence prix / volume — le prix fait un PLUS HAUT pendant que le volume fait un PLUS BAS. Règle EXACTE, sur la fenêtre des `lookback` barres STRICTEMENT PRÉCÉDENTES (fenêtre [i−N, i−1] — la barre courante ne peut pas être sa propre référence, même convention que flow2.ts) : marqueur en i ssi i ≥ N ET high[i] > max(high[j]) pour j ∈ [i−N, i−1] ET volume[i] < min(volume[j]) pour j ∈ [i−N, i−1] Les deux inégalités sont STRICTES : égaler le plus haut n'est pas « faire un plus haut », égaler le plus bas de volume n'est pas « faire un plus bas ». Warm-up (i < N) → AUCUN marqueur : une fenêtre partielle donnerait des extrêmes plus faciles à battre, donc des signaux faux au bord gauche du chart. POURQUOI : un nouveau plus haut de la fenêtre accompagné du plus FAIBLE volume de cette même fenêtre est une extension sans participation — personne ne suit. C'est le motif de divergence baissière le plus élémentaire du couple prix/volume, et c'est aussi celui qui se voit le moins à l'œil nu, le regard étant attiré par le nouveau plus haut. Marqueur : flèche BASSE posée au HIGH de la barre (le signal est baissier, il se lit au sommet). SENS UNIQUE assumé : seule la divergence haussière-du-prix est détectée, conformément à la règle spécifiée. Le miroir (nouveau plus bas sur volume séchant) n'est PAS émis — c'est un motif différent, à la lecture différente (épuisement vendeur), qui mériterait sa propre def et son propre défaut. Défaut N = 20 : la fenêtre de référence usuelle du catalogue pour les extrêmes (même valeur que volume-zscore et climax-bars, flow2.ts). N'utilise NI le delta NI les niveaux : indépendant du tick size.
How to read it
- Each marker states two facts at once: this bar posted the highest high of the window, and it did so on the lowest volume of the window.
- The absence of a marker does not mean the absence of divergence, because equalling the previous high or the previous volume low fails the strict test.
- Check what the quiet volume is made of before drawing conclusions: a low-participation session, a holiday period or a lunch hour can produce the same arithmetic as genuine exhaustion.
- No bullish mirror exists in this series, so a new low made on drying volume is never marked here.
- Take the marker as an invitation to look at the footprint and the tape on that bar, not as an entry in itself.
Parameters and defaults
Lookback defaults to 20 bars, the same reference window this catalog uses for other extremes, and accepts 1 to 500. At 1 the test reduces to a comparison with the single preceding bar and fires constantly; a long window fires rarely and demands a genuine multi-hour extreme. The first bars of a chart never carry a marker, since a partial window would make both records artificially easy to break.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lookback | number | 20 | 1 – 500 |
What it does not show
The indicator does not look at aggressor side, delta or price levels, so it cannot tell you who was trading, only how much. Its window is a fixed count of preceding bars rather than a session, so a window can straddle a quiet overnight stretch and a busy open and compare volumes that were never comparable. Markers can appear far from any turn, and a real top can form without any marker at all, since the conditions are strict. It also loses meaning on instruments or hours where volume is thin enough that the lowest volume of the window is a matter of chance.
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
- Volume Z-Score — Tape & flow
- Session RVOL — Tape & flow
- Trade intensity — Tape & flow
- Tape speed EMA — Tape & flow
- Climax bars — Tape & flow
- Quiet bars — 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 does a price volume divergence mean?
- It describes a market making a new price extreme while volume fails to confirm it. Here the definition is precise: a new high across the lookback window accompanied by the lowest volume of that same window, which means the extension was carried by fewer participants than the bars that preceded it. It describes the state of participation, not the outcome of the move.
- Does this indicator detect bullish divergence too?
- No. It is deliberately one-directional and only marks a new high made on the lowest volume of the window. The mirror case, a new low on drying volume, is a different pattern read as seller exhaustion and would require its own definition and its own default window.
- Can a marker appear or disappear once the bar has closed?
- No. The test for a given bar reads only the bars before it, so once that bar is closed its marker is settled and later bars never add or remove it. What moves forward with each new bar is the window itself, and therefore the high and the volume that the next bar will have to beat.