Volume profile — volume by price
Rotate the axis: where volume traded matters as much as when.
The volume bars under a chart show volume by time. A volume profile rotates the axis and shows volume by price — a sideways histogram of how much traded at each level. It is a map of where the market has done business, and it turns support and resistance from drawn lines into measured fact.
The three features that matter
- Point of control (POC) — the single price with the most volume: the session's fairest price, and a magnet on revisits. Old POCs from prior days remain sticky levels.
- High-volume nodes (HVN) — price shelves of heavy acceptance. Price entering an HVN tends to slow down and rotate — business was done here before and both sides re-engage.
- Low-volume nodes (LVN) — thin gaps in the profile where the market never agreed. Price moves fast through them: no resting interest to slow it down. LVNs behave like air pockets between shelves.
Using the profile
The playbook: expect rotation and chop inside HVNs, expect acceleration through LVNs, respect the POC as a magnet, and watch the value area edges as the session's first support and resistance. Where a profile shelf lines up with swing structure or a GEX wall, you have three independent reasons for the same level — the confluence that separates A-setups from guesses.
The value area
Around the POC sits the value area (VA) — the price band containing roughly 70% of the session's volume, i.e. one standard deviation of where business got done. Its edges, VAH (value area high) and VAL (value area low), are the two most-watched lines on a profile: inside them the market agreed on price, outside them it did not.
The default shape of a rotational day: a bell curve with the POC near the middle and thin tails at both extremes. Both sides showed up, neither won. Expect mean reversion — extensions toward the tails get pulled back toward the POC.