How it's built

Every volume profile is the result of a few choices. Change them and the "same" profile changes.

How it's built

1. Choose a window — a session, several days, or a range you draw.
2. Divide price into bins (rows) — one tick, or several ticks per row.
3. Add up the volume traded in each bin during the window.
4. Draw each bin's total as a horizontal bar.

The POC is the bin with the most volume. The value area is built by starting at the POC and adding the busiest neighbouring bins until about 70% of the window's volume is included. Implementations differ slightly in how they expand and break ties.

The choices that matter

• Bin size — wider rows smooth the profile and can move the POC; one-tick rows show more detail and more noise.
• Window — the regular session only, or overnight included? A different window is a different auction.
• Data — tick data vs. bar data. Profiles built from minute bars have to estimate where inside each bar the volume traded.
• Contract — the front month vs. a continuous, back-adjusted series.

Trading implication

Write your profile settings down — window, bin size, data — and use the same ones every day, so that what changes on your chart is the market and not your configuration.