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TPO Indicator, or Profile Indicator?While Market Profile charts are powerful and popular tools that appeal to many traders, MarketDelta also provides two indicators for viewing profiles on candlestick and Footprint charts. These are the “TPO Indicator” and “Profile Indicator.” The features of these two indicators at first seem similar, so you may find yourself wondering which to use. For example, with both indicators you can show information for the current day profile, or the previous day profile, or both. So what is the difference? The TPO indicator always shows data and profile levels based on 30-minute TPO letter durations. Thus, it closely matches what a true, traditional Market Profile chart shows. If you want to monitor Market Profile levels on your intraday chart, no matter what periodicity your chart is set to, use the TPO indicator. It will show the same value area and POC data as a Market Profile chart, no matter how your chart is organized. The Profile indicator draws value area and POC levels as well, but it uses the periodicity of the chart to determine the information. This primarily applies to time-based profiles, as opposed to volume-based. The cumulative volume for a price is going to be the same, whether you look at a 5-minute or 1.25 range or 1 minute or 233 tick chart. But the number of bars, and thus the number of times a specific price was charted, will widely vary depending on these periodicities. Thus the time-based profiles in the Profile indicator will not look the same as Market Profile charts unless you are using 30-minute candles or Footprints. Additionally, the Profile indicator offers many other features that are not available in the TPO indicator, such as long-term composites, the ability to split a session into up to three different profiles, and more. So it really depends on your needs and the type of precision you want to see in your profile results as to which of these two indicators you should use. Composite Volume ProfilesOne of the most popular features in MarketDelta is the ability to see volume distributions over a long period of time. For example, over the last 2 weeks or 2 years, where were the most-traded prices? Here is a quick tutorial. Using the Profile indicator, you can see this information easily. However, you must have access to good minute-based historical data, such as from DTN Market Access or IQFeed. If you do not have the price history on file, then you cannot view the composite volume profile. First, download as much minute data you need for the period you wish to study. In this example, I will look at the composite for the last year for the ES, so I start with a minute download:
Then, I look at any ES multi-pane chart, such as a footprint or candlestick chart, and change its view period to time period I wish to study:
After you are done, look back to the beginning of your chart to make sure it starts at the time that begins your study period. Finally, add an instance of the Profile indicator. One way to do this is to use the Insert button on your keyboard, then find the Profile indicator in the list. You will want to structure your Profile settings as follows:
You can also use the “auto peak” option if you want to have the indicator automatically create horizontal reference lines at the high-volume and low-volume nodes in the profile. You can adjust the sensitivity for this setting as well. Both options are near the bottom of this window:
When you are done, depending on your stylistic preferences, you will have a volume composite for the last year, like so:
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