Time Price Opportunity and Volume Profile summarize a trading period by showing how much time and how much traded size were spent at each price. Both are built from the same bar data but measure different quantities: the first counts how often a price was visited, the second sums the size traded there. The settings below apply to both profile types, with the differences noted where they matter.
01 Tick size and row resolution
Row resolution is the price height of one profile row. It is set either in ticks or in points and is independent of the chart tick size used by the price axis.
- Tick size — the minimum increment of the instrument, for example 0.25.
- Ticks per row — how many increments are merged into one profile row, for example 4.
- Resulting row height — the product of the two, for example 1.00 point.
Finer rows reveal structure but produce tall profiles that are hard to compare between sessions. A row height near the average bar range divided by ten is a practical starting point. When the resolution is finer than the chart tick, profile rows are drawn inside the price gaps and the profile becomes taller than the bar range it summarizes.
02 Value area percentage
The value area is the band of rows that contains a chosen share of total activity. It is built by starting at the point of control and adding the adjacent row with the greater activity until the target share is reached. The band is reported as a value area high and a value area low.
| Share | Result |
|---|---|
| 70 percent | default band for most sessions |
| 80 percent | wider band, fewer accepted levels outside |
| 90 percent | near-complete range, mostly for review |
| 50 percent | narrow band around the control row |
The bands for the two profile types usually differ. A time-based band and a volume-based band computed with the same share can sit at different prices on the same session.
03 Session splitting
Splitting decides where one profile ends and the next begins. The session definition comes from the instrument schedule, so a profile boundary follows the exchange session rather than the calendar day unless an override is set.
- Per session — one profile for each scheduled session of the instrument.
- Per day — one profile for each calendar day in the chart time zone.
- Per week or month — longer aggregates for higher-level context.
- Manual range — an explicit start and end timestamp chosen by the operator.
Extended hours can be included in the main profile or split into a separate one, and both choices change the control row whenever the extended period carries unusual size.
04 Composite profiles
A composite profile merges several session profiles into one fixed range so that longer structure becomes visible. The merge sums the activity of every included profile row by row at the chosen resolution, then rebuilds the value area and the control row from the merged totals. A composite over ten sessions with a row height of 0.25 produces a profile whose total activity equals the sum of the ten sessions. Composite profiles keep their own resolution setting; changing the resolution requires the merge to be recomputed.
05 Point of control
The control row is the single price row with the greatest activity in the profile. In a time profile it is the row with the most time counted; in a volume profile it is the row with the greatest traded size. The two can differ on the same session whenever a price held for a long period with modest size and another price saw a short burst of heavy size.
Options for the control row include drawing a horizontal line, extending that line forward across subsequent bars, and printing the price next to the profile. Only one control row is drawn per profile, and ties are resolved in favour of the price closest to the profile midpoint.
06 Placement and merging rules
- Placement
- The profile can be anchored to the right edge of the bars it covers, offset by a fixed number of pixels, or pinned to the left edge of the visible range.
- Merge overlapping
- When two profiles cover the same price rows they can be drawn as separate shapes or merged into one outline.
- Empty rows
- Rows with no activity can be hidden, which shortens the profile, or kept, which preserves the true price spacing.
- Opacity
- A single value applied to the profile fill so that bars remain visible behind it.
