Volume profiles

Volume Profile displays the trading activity over a specific time period at certain price levels.

Volume Profile displays the trading activity over a specific period at certain price levels. Meaning, that it shows what was bought and sold at those current levels, and displays them in a histogram on the side of your chart. Volume Profile allows you to see the zones of maximum trading interest, and as a consequence, the "true" support/resistance levels.

Quantower platform offers four types of Volume profiles:

Step Volume Profile

Step profile displays volume profiles with a certain time step. For example, set the step period to 1 hour, and you will see profiles with uniform hourly steps on the graph. By changing the data types, you will see the distribution of the trading volume, the executed trades, as well as the delta for each hour of the trading session.

You can enable Step Profile through the volume analysis toolbar or their settings.

General Settings of Step Profile

Step period & Step coefficient – determines the interval used to build the profile. The step period can be set to one of five types – Minute, Hour, Day, Week, or Month.
Step period for the profile
Sessions Template – here you can select the trading session template you need, which determines the time frame over which the volume profile calculates values. To learn how to create and customize your own template, you can refer to this guide.
Data type – choose from over 20 data types to build a step profile.
Histogram position – select whether the profile histogram is displayed on the left or right side relative to the starting point.
Histogram label position – determines the position of the data value: left, right or none.
Coloring mode – setting allows you to color the volume profile using a different type of data. For example, you can color a standard Volume Profile based on Delta values. This feature helps you visualize additional information by applying colors from one data set to another.
Applying various color schemes for Volume profile
Coloring Modes for Volume Profile
Width of histogram, % – set the maximum width of the profile histogram.
Show profile – toggle the visibility of the profile. The POC level (Point of Control) and Value Area borders can remain visible on the chart.
Show POC – Point of Control is the level with the maximum value that will be highlighted with the specified color.
Extend POC until intersection – the Point of Control line will be extended until it intersects with the future price. If an intersection is not encountered, then the Point of Control Line is extended to the right side of the chart.
Show Value Area – shows the price area with 70% of trading activity for the specified time range. The value of 70% is set by default, but the user can change it at his discretion.
Value Area borders – shows the outer limits of the Value Area as dotted lines.
Show totals – this option summarizes the data based on which the profile is built.

Left & Right Volume Profiles

Left and Right volume profiles can be placed on the left and right sides of the chart respectively. For example, you can set the delta data on one profile, and on the other the total volume for the same period of time. You can combine several profiles that are built on different time periods into one combo profile and put it on the left or right chart position.

General settings of Left and Right volume profiles

Width of histogram, % – determines the maximum width of the profile histogram.
Data type – choose any of the 20+ data types to build a volume profile.
Show POC – Point of Control is the level with the maximum value that will be highlighted with the specified color.
Show Value Area – shows the price area with 70% of trading activity for the specified time range. The value of 70% is set by default, but the user can change it at his discretion.
Value Area borders – shows the outer limits of the Value Area as dotted lines.

Custom Volume Profile

Custom profile allows you to create a profile for any specific time range. For instance, you might want to see the delta distribution on a flat chart or for an impulse bar. Like other volume analysis tools, you can choose from any available data types for display.

After placing a custom profile on the chart, a control panel with five options will appear next to it:

Duplicate Profile Create a copy of the profile with the same range and settings.
Move Profile Shift the profile to the background or foreground of the chart.
Lock Profile Position Prevent the profile from being moved by locking its current position.
Additional Settings Access more settings for the selected profile to customize it further.
Delete Profile Remove the selected profile from the chart.

Additional settings for custom profile

In addition to the settings for quick management of custom profile, there are additional settings. Let's take a closer look at what you can customize.

There are a lot of various settings, but the most interesting are:

Value Area — shows the price area with 70% of trading activity for the specified time range. The value of 70% is set by default, but the user can change it at his discretion.
POC Ray — extends the level of maximum volume (Point of Control) to the price scale
Show Total — shows/hides the total number under a certain profile
Custom step (ticks) summarizes the volume data of as many price levels as specified in the setting. By default, the value of the custom step is set to 1 tick, which means the volume data are shown at each price level.

Last updated 1 year ago