Chaikin Volatility: the rate of change of a smoothed high-to-low range, so it
answers "is the bar getting wider?" rather than "how wide is it?".
The smoother is an EMA, not an SMA: an average of ranges reacts to a single
wide bar for periods bars and then drops it in one step, which prints a
spurious second move on the rate of change. Zero is the neutral reading, and
a zero denominator (a period of perfectly flat bars) has no rate of change to
report, so it stays a gap rather than becoming Infinity.
Chaikin Volatility: the rate of change of a smoothed high-to-low range, so it answers "is the bar getting wider?" rather than "how wide is it?".
The smoother is an EMA, not an SMA: an average of ranges reacts to a single wide bar for
periodsbars and then drops it in one step, which prints a spurious second move on the rate of change. Zero is the neutral reading, and a zero denominator (a period of perfectly flat bars) has no rate of change to report, so it stays a gap rather than becoming Infinity.