Glossary · Microstructure
Market profile is a way of organizing a session by the time price spends at each level. Each 30-minute bracket prints a letter — a TPO, or Time-Price-Opportunity — at the prices it traded, and the stacked letters form a distribution that reveals the value area (where about 70% of the session's trade occurred), the point of control (the most-traded price), and whether the auction is balancing or trending.
It is a futures-native tool: the value area and point of control are standard daily references for ES and NQ traders, used to frame where the auction considers price 'fair' and where it is being rejected.
The session is divided into time brackets, each assigned a letter. As price trades through a bracket, that letter is printed next to every price level it touched. Stack the brackets and a distribution emerges — usually bell-shaped — that shows where the market spent its time.
The widest part of the distribution is the point of control (POC): the most-accepted, most-traded price. The band around it that contains roughly 70% (one standard deviation) of the activity is the value area, bounded by the value-area high and value-area low.
A symmetrical, bell-shaped profile is a balanced (rotational) day: the auction agreed on value and rotated around it — fade the extremes. A thin, elongated profile is a trend day: price moved directionally and spent little time at any level — follow it, don't fade it.
Other shapes carry information too: a double distribution (two humps) marks a shift in accepted value; a P-shape often signals short covering, a b-shape long liquidation. The shape is a quick read on what kind of day you're in before you take a trade.
Common references: fade moves back toward the POC on a balanced day; treat value-area edges as decision points; watch whether price accepts (spends time) or rejects (single prints) a new area. Where today opens relative to yesterday's value (inside, above, below) frames the session's likely behavior.
Sharpnel renders TPO / market profile in composite and split modes alongside the footprint and DOM, so the structural map sits next to the live order flow filling it in — the value area and the absorption defending it on one chart.
The price range that contains roughly 70% — one standard deviation — of a session's TPO activity, bounded by the value-area high and value-area low. It marks where the auction considered price fair.
The price level with the most TPOs — the most-traded, most-accepted price of the session. It acts as a magnet: price often rotates back toward the POC on balanced days.
Market profile measures TIME spent at each price (TPO letters); volume profile measures VOLUME traded at each price. Both surface a value area and point of control, but one is built from time and the other from volume — many traders watch both.
Yes — it originated in the futures pits and remains a futures-native tool. The value area and point of control are standard daily references for ES, NQ and other index futures, used to frame session structure and locate fair value.
Sharpnel ships TPO / market profile in composite and split modes, on the same chart as the footprint, DOM, and tape — the structural map next to the live order flow. Free Explorer tier on 15-min delayed data.
