Glossary · Microstructure
The value area is the price range where roughly 70% of a session's activity occurred — one standard deviation around the point of control (the most-traded price). It marks the zone the auction treated as 'fair value', and its upper and lower edges — the value-area high (VAH) and value-area low (VAL) — are among the most-watched reference levels in futures trading.
Where price opens and trades relative to the prior session's value area — inside it, above it, or below it — frames how the day is likely to behave before you take a single trade.
Start at the point of control (POC) — the price with the most volume or time — and expand outward, adding the next most-active prices above and below, until the accumulated range holds about 70% of the session's total. That 70% threshold approximates one standard deviation of the distribution.
The top of that range is the value-area high (VAH); the bottom is the value-area low (VAL). Together with the POC, they're the three numbers most session traders mark first.
Inside value, the market is in balance — traders often fade the edges back toward the POC. The VAH and VAL act as decision points: price rejecting them keeps the balance intact; price accepting (spending time) beyond them signals a move to a new area.
The open relative to prior value is a strong directional cue: opening inside prior value suggests a rotational day; opening and accepting outside it suggests trend. Watching acceptance vs rejection at VAH/VAL is how traders read whether the auction is agreeing or rejecting a new price.
There are two common versions: the volume value area (built from volume traded at each price) and the TPO value area (built from time spent at each price, the original market-profile method). Both produce a VAH, VAL, and POC; many traders watch both, since agreement between them strengthens a level.
Sharpnel renders the value area on the same chart as the footprint, DOM, and tape — so the fair-value zone and the live order flow defending its edges sit together.
The upper and lower bounds of the ~70% range — VAH and VAL. They act as acceptance/rejection references: VAH often behaves as resistance and VAL as support while the market stays in balance.
Roughly 70% approximates one standard deviation of the session's distribution — the bulk of trade the auction accepted as fair. It's a convention from market-profile theory, not a hard law, but it's near-universal.
The point of control (POC) is the single most-traded price; the value area is the range around it that contains about 70% of the session's activity. The POC is a point; the value area is the zone.
As a fair-value reference: fade extremes back toward the POC inside value, watch for acceptance or rejection at VAH/VAL, and gauge the day's character by where price opens relative to the prior session's value area.
Sharpnel draws the value area, VAH/VAL, and POC on the same chart as the footprint and DOM — the fair-value zone next to the live order flow. Free Explorer tier on 15-min delayed data.
