Every trade has a buyer and a seller, so 'more buyers than sellers' is not quite right. What differs is who was in a hurry. Order flow analysis looks at whether trades happened at the ask price (an aggressive buyer) or at the bid price (an aggressive seller).

Cumulative volume delta, or CVD, adds up that difference through the day. It is a running score of aggressive buying versus aggressive selling.

Delta and CVD in simple terms

A rising CVD line means aggressive buyers have dominated so far; a falling line means aggressive sellers have.

  • Delta for a bar = volume traded at the ask − volume traded at the bid.
  • Positive delta: aggressive buyers took more volume in that bar.
  • CVD: the running total of delta from the start of the session.

Reading CVD with price

When price and CVD rise together, the move has aggressive buying behind it. When price rises but CVD flattens or falls, the move is happening without fresh aggressive buying — traders call this a divergence and treat the move with more caution.

Absorption is another pattern: heavy selling shows in CVD, but price refuses to fall. That can mean large passive buyers are soaking up the selling.

CVD together with open interest

In NIFTY futures, combining CVD with change in OI adds context. Aggressive buying with rising OI points to fresh longs. Aggressive buying with falling OI points more to shorts covering. This is the same logic as buildups, but at the level of individual trades.

Limits

  • In Indian markets, CVD is usually estimated from quote snapshots, so values differ between platforms.
  • CVD can trend for hours while price stays in a range.
  • Like every indicator, it describes what happened, not what will happen next.