HVN, LVN, POC & value

A volume profile takes a session (or any range you choose) and asks one question at every price: how much traded here? Everything below is a name for part of that answer.

Part	One line
HVN	Lots traded here. Price was accepted.
LVN	Very little traded here. Price was rejected.
POC	The single price where the most traded.
Value area	The range holding about 70% of the volume.
VAH / VAL	The top and bottom edges of that range.
Shelf	A thick, flat block of volume — an HVN with width.

HVN — high volume node

A price or narrow band where a large amount of volume traded. Both sides were comfortable doing business there: an accepted price.

• Price tends to slow down inside HVNs and rotate rather than run.
• When price is away from one without a strong reason, HVNs can act as a magnet.
• On a return visit they often behave as support or resistance, because the people who traded there are still around.

An HVN is a place to be patient, not a place to chase.

LVN — low volume node

A price or band where very little traded. The market offered those prices and nobody wanted to do business: a rejected price.

• Price tends to travel through LVNs quickly.
• They make poor targets — the market has already shown it doesn't linger there.
• They often mark the boundary between two areas of value.

Thin areas are the road between destinations, not the destination.

POC — point of control

The single price with the most volume. Out of every price in the period, this is where buyers and sellers met most often.

• It's often the strongest reference on the profile.
• On a live session, watch whether it moves. A POC migrating in one direction means value itself is moving — a trending day. A POC staying put while price swings around it means rotation.

Value area, VAH and VAL

The range containing roughly 70% of the period's volume. Most platforms build it by starting at the POC and adding the busiest neighbouring prices until 70% is reached. It doesn't have to be symmetrical.

The 70% figure is a convention that echoes the ~68% of a normal distribution inside one standard deviation. Real volume distributions are rarely normal, so treat it as a shared convention rather than a statistical law.

• Inside value: balance — expect rotation.
• At the edges: decisions. Price either gets rejected back into value or accepted beyond it.
• Outside value: either an excursion about to be rejected or a genuine reprice. The tell is whether volume starts building out there.

Shelf

A run of consecutive high-volume rows forming a thick, flat block — sustained business across a range of prices. Price tends to stall on approach rather than react at one exact tick, and breaking a shelf usually matters more than breaking a single node. (Platforms and educators use "shelf" slightly differently; this is the broad meaning.)

Reading a profile in ten seconds

1. Where's the POC?
2. Where are VAH and VAL?
3. Is price inside, above or below value?
4. Where are the thin areas price could move through quickly?
5. Any shelves where it might struggle?

That's a map. It isn't a trade yet — turning the map into entries, stops and targets is what the Utopia curriculum covers next.