2 lessons · 4 min · quiz
🔤 TPO
Market Profile's letter chart — how time at price reveals value, balance and the shape of the day.
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The TPO chart — the original Market Profile — organises the session by time at price. Each period (commonly 30 minutes) is given a letter, and a letter is printed at every price that traded during that period. Stack them up and the auction draws its own distribution.
Key Insight
TPO measures time, not volume. A price where the market spent many periods is a price the market was comfortable at, even if volume there was modest.
Questions this module helps you answer
- Where did the market spend the most time today?
- How wide was the initial balance, and did the day extend beyond it?
- Is today's profile balanced, trending, or lopsided — and what does that say about who was active?
- Where are poor highs, poor lows and single prints the auction may come back to?
Core Pillars
- TPO letters — one letter per time period, at every price traded in it.
- TPO POC and value area — the price with the most letters and the range holding about 70% of them.
- Initial balance — the range of the first hour.
- Range extension — trading beyond the initial balance, often a sign of other-timeframe activity.
- Profile shape — the day's distribution tells a story about participation.