On-balance volume (OBV)
On-balance volume is a running total that adds the day's full volume when the stock closes up and subtracts it when the stock closes down, tracking cumulative buying and selling pressure over time.
`obv` keeps a running total of volume signed by each day's direction: the whole day's volume is added if the close was higher than the previous close, subtracted if lower. The absolute number is meaningless, because it depends on where the series started. Its shape is the point. Rising OBV means up days are carrying the volume; falling OBV means down days are.
The classic reading is that volume leads price. When OBV makes a new high before price does, buying pressure is already at breakout levels, and the OBV at a six-month high scan (`obv() is highest in 26w`) looks for exactly that lead. The streak form is also useful. OBV rising for five bars means every recent session resolved in the buyers' favour by volume, whatever the closes looked like. Divergence, price at new highs while OBV is not, is the bearish mirror.
OBV's crudeness is its known weakness. A day that closes up ₹0.05 on huge volume books all of that volume as buying, and one large block trade can bend the line for weeks. That is why I read it as a trend over weeks and confirm it against something computed differently. On NSE data the delivery percentage is the natural cross-check: OBV infers conviction from intraday direction, while delivery reports overnight conviction directly.
Against its siblings. OBV signs the entire day's volume by close-to-close direction, all or nothing. Accumulation/distribution weights each day's volume by where the close sat inside the day's range, so a weak close counts against the stock even on an up day. Chaikin money flow is A/D normalised over a 20-bar window, which turns the unbounded line into an oscillator around zero.
In Sift
Written as obv — a signed running total; only its direction and relative levels matter. A working scan — Cumulative volume flow at a six-month high while the trend holds:
where obv() is highest in 26w and close > sma(50)1
of the 500 most-traded NSE stocks match today, as of 25 Sept 2026
Scans that use it
Prebuilt scans in the library whose query reads this value — each with a hit-rate replay over the last 250 sessions.
Common questions
What does rising OBV mean?
That recent up days have carried more volume than recent down days, so the sessions are resolving in the buyers' favour. The classic interpretation is that this pressure precedes price: OBV making new highs while price has not yet is read as accumulation leading a move. It is a tendency worth checking rather than a rule.
What is a good OBV value?
There is none. OBV is a running total from an arbitrary starting point, so its absolute level carries no information. Only its direction, its trend and where it sits against its own recent history mean anything, which is why the useful conditions are relative ones: OBV at a 26-week high, rising for five bars, or diverging from price.
What is the difference between OBV and accumulation/distribution?
OBV assigns the whole day's volume to one side based on whether the close was up or down. A/D splits each day's volume by where the close sat within the day's high-low range, so a stock that closes up but near its low still records selling pressure. A/D is finer-grained; OBV is simpler and blunter.