Volume profile, free on a live chart

How to read it

Long bars are prices where a lot of volume changed hands. Price tends to slow down around them, because both sides were willing to trade there. Short bars are prices the market passed through quickly, and it often moves through them quickly again.

The value area is the middle of the trading. Price above it means buyers have pushed out of the range most of the volume agreed on; price below it, the same for sellers. The blue part of each bar is volume from candles that closed up, the grey part from candles that closed down.

How it is worked out

The range from the lowest low to the highest high is cut into 24 rows. Each candle’s volume is spread over the rows between its low and its high, in proportion to how much of each row it covers. The row with the most volume is the point of control.

The value area starts at the point of control and adds the busier of the next row above and the next row below, one at a time, until it holds 70% of all the volume.

Which profile to use

Visible Range covers whatever is on the screen and changes as you scroll. Session gives one profile per day, which suits intraday levels. Fixed range covers two points you choose, like the start and end of a rally. Anchored starts at one candle and runs to the latest one, so it follows a move from where it began.

If you want to see how the volume traded over time at each price, the market profile and TPO page covers that, and the footprint chart page shows buying and selling inside each candle.

A worked example

Example numbers: one candle runs from $67,000 to $67,600 with 300 BTC of volume, and the rows are $200 tall. It covers 3 rows equally, so each row gets 100 BTC.

If the whole profile holds 10,000 BTC, the value area needs 7,000 BTC. Starting from the point of control, it takes the busier neighbour each step until those 7,000 BTC are inside.

Questions and answers

Is there a free volume profile?

Yes. The chart on this page is free, and every volume profile in Pravex is free too: Visible Range, Session, Session HD, Periodic, Auto Anchored, and the fixed range and anchored drawings.

What is the point of control?

The price row with the most volume in the profile. When two rows tie, the lower one counts.

Why 70% for the value area?

It is the common convention, close to one standard deviation of a normal curve. You can set any percentage in the settings.

What is the difference between volume profile and market profile?

A volume profile measures volume at each price. A market profile (TPO) counts how many time periods price spent at each level. They often agree on the busy prices, but not always.

More indicators on a live chart: Renko chart, Heikin Ashi chart, All indicators.

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