How to Use Volume Indicators in TradingView

Volume indicators in TradingView all live in the same place: the Indicators button at the top of the chart. Type a name into the search box, click it, and it attaches to whatever market you have open. The three worth knowing first are Volume, VWAP and On Balance Volume, and each takes about ten seconds to add.

The three to start with

Search Volume and you get the coloured bars under the price, usually green on up candles and red on down ones. Search VWAP and you get one line showing the volume weighted average price for the current session. Search On Balance Volume and you get the running tally of up-day minus down-day volume in a panel of its own. Add them one at a time on a market you know - a Bitcoin or Ethereum pair on a major exchange - rather than all at once.

Finding volume profile

Volume profile is the sideways histogram showing how much traded at each price. TradingView's own versions - Visible Range, Fixed Range, Session Volume - sit under the same Indicators search, though the built-in ones are part of the paid plans. There are free community scripts that do a rough version, and the Fixed Range tool in the drawing toolbar lets you measure a stretch of chart you select by hand. For the anchored VWAP, look for the Anchored VWAP tool in the same drawing menu: you place it on a bar, and the line starts there.

The settings beginners get wrong

Two things trip people up. First, the market you choose is the data. Volume comes from the one exchange feed the chart is drawing, so the same coin on a small venue and a large one will show completely different bars - always check the ticker in the corner. Second, VWAP resets by session, and because crypto never closes, the reset is a setting. Open the indicator's settings, check the anchor period, and know whether your line restarts daily, weekly or at a point you picked.

Turn on one indicator, leave it for a week, and only add the next once you know what its normal behaviour looks like. A chart with six volume tools on it is harder to read than one with none. For what the lines actually mean, start with VWAP in practice, then volume profile and AVWAP.