Practical guide

Example #1: Trapped market participants

One or both points of control at one end of candle range (wick tail) and candle close at the other end serves as an indication of market participants trapped in an awkward position. When price runs away further from these trapped participants, they are eventually forced to cover and drive price even further to the opposite direction:

Example #2: Trend initiation

A large move that leaves TPOC behind while VPOC is supportive serves as an indication of a trend initiation. Essentially, this is one way to identify an event where price traded sideways most of the time and suddenly moved away with volume:

Example #3: POC supported trend

A trend is healthy when it's supported by a point of control. Ideally you want to see either time or volume supporting a trend:

Concept and features

TPOC (time point of control) and VPOC (volume point of control) are points in price where highest amount of time/volume was traded. This is considered key information in a market profile, as it shows where market participant interest was highest. Unlike full fledged market profile that shows total time/volume distribution, this script shows the points of control for each candle, plotted with a line (time) and a dot (volume). The script hides your candles/bars by default and forms a line in the middle representing candle range. In case of candles, borders will still be visible. This feature can be turned off in the settings.

Volume and time data are fetched from a lower timeframe that is automatically adjusted to fit the timeframe you're using. By default, the following settings are applied:

Charts <= 30 min: 1 minute timeframe
Charts > 30 min & <= 3 hours : 5 minute timeframe
Charts > 3 hours & <= 8 hours : 15 minute timeframe
Charts > 8 hours & <= 1D: 1 hour timeframe
Charts > 1D & <= 3D : 2 hour timeframe
Charts > 3D: 4 hour timeframe

Timeframe settings can be changed via input menu. The lower the timeframe, the more precision you get but with the cost of less historical data and slower loading time. Users can also choose which source to use for determining price for points of control, e.g. using close as source, the point of control is set to match the value of lower timeframe candle close. This could be replaced with OHLC4 for example, resulting in a point of control based on OHLC average.

To identify more profound points of market participant interest, TPOC & VPOC as percentage of total time/volume thresholds can be set via input menu. When a point of control is equal to or greater than the set percentage threshold, visual elements will be highlighted in a different color, e.g. 50% VPOC threshold will activate a highlight whenever volume traded at VPOC is equal to or greater than 50% of total volume. All colors are customizable.

VPOC is defined by fetching lower timeframe candle with the most amount of volume traded and using its close (by default) as a mark for point of control. For TPOC, each candle is divided into 10 lots which are used for calculating amount of closes taking place within the bracket values. The lot with highest amount of closes will be considered a point of control. This mark is displayed in the middle point of a lot: