VOLUME PROFILE, Point of Control (POC)

Learn how to use and interpret the Volume Profile indicator's Point of Control (POC). Understand its significance in market analysis for identifying potential t

Published · Updated · Methodology: Technical Indicators

Part of: Volume Analysis

  • Methodology: Technical Indicators
  • Content type: educational

Indicators used

  • VOLUME PROFILE
  • Point of Control (POC)

Source video

Decoded from: VOLUME PROFILE | How to Trade Point of Control (POC) by Trader Dale — watch the original

Strategy overview

In a volume profile, the Point of Control (POC) is simply the price at which the most volume changed hands over the chosen window. What makes it unusual is where it comes from: every other level a trader draws — a swing high, a trendline, a prior day's close — is read off the price axis and marks somewhere price *went*. The POC is read off the volume axis and marks where trade *concentrated*. It is a mode, the tallest bar in a histogram, and that has a consequence most level-drawing does not: it is decided by an argmax, so it can sit in one place for hours and then hop to a different price the moment a neighbouring row overtakes it. In a profile with two comparable high-volume nodes, the POC is only the marginally taller of the two.

That is why the framing of this entry — "how to trade" one component rather than a full system — is the substance rather than a shortcut. The POC carries two standard and opposite readings: as a magnet, on the logic that a price where enormous volume transacted is where both sides agreed on value and where price tends to be drawn back; and as a barrier, on the logic that the same concentration of positions defends itself and rejects a test. Same line, incompatible expectations. Which one is in force depends on where price currently sits relative to the POC, which side is doing the testing, and whether the profile is still forming — and resolving that is the whole content of a POC tutorial. The base concept takes a sentence; the usage rules do not.

This entry is decoded from Trader Dale's video "VOLUME PROFILE | How to Trade Point of Control (POC)". The record for it is deliberately thin, and the gaps matter here more than usual: the POC is not a defined price until two choices are fixed — the profile's window (a session, a day, a range, a visible-range span) and the row height that bins the volume — and neither is recorded, nor are timeframes, indicator settings or chapter markers. No trading rules were extracted, so this page does not stand in for the video's specific procedure; what it offers is the statistical nature of the level and the two readings any POC method has to choose between.

Topics

volume profile · point of control poc · technical indicators · tradingview strategy · pine script · trading volume · market analysis · indicator explained · trading strategy

Frequently asked questions

What is the Point of Control (POC) in a volume profile?

It is the price level at which the highest volume traded during the period the profile covers — the tallest row of the volume histogram. Unlike a swing high or a trendline, it is derived from the volume axis, so it describes where trade concentrated rather than where price travelled.

Is the POC support/resistance or a magnet for price?

Both readings are in common use and they point in opposite directions: as a magnet, price is expected to revert toward the heavily traded price; as a barrier, that same price is expected to reject a test. Which applies depends on where price is relative to the POC and which side is testing it, which is exactly what a POC-specific method has to specify.

Does the POC change as the session develops?

Yes. Because it is the highest-volume row rather than a fixed price, it moves whenever another row overtakes the current leader — and it can jump rather than drift, especially in a profile with two similar high-volume nodes. Its location also depends on the profile window and the row height you configure, so two traders can read different POCs from the same chart.

Is a volume POC the same as a Market Profile TPO POC?

No, though the acronym is shared. A volume POC ranks price levels by contracts or shares traded; a TPO (time price opportunity) POC ranks them by how much time price spent there. They frequently sit at or near the same price but they measure different things, so it is worth knowing which one an indicator is plotting.

About this strategy page

This trading strategy was decoded by Strategy Decoder's AI from a public YouTube trading video and turned into a structured, reviewable specification. In the interactive app this page shows the full entry and exit logic, risk management settings, the indicators involved with their parameters, AlgoWizard-compatible logic and a Pine Script export ready for TradingView backtesting — plus an automated backtest verdict when one has been computed for this strategy.

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