Market ProfileA way of reading the market that recognizes either time spent or volume traded at a particular price level. A market profile can be either made up of “TPO’s” (time price opportunities), or volume. TPO’s measure how much time was spent at a particular price, while volume-based market profiles measure how much volume traded at a particular price. Generally, market profile is used in the trading of futures, especially the /ES. ShadowTrader utilizes volume based profiles. Value Areas and POCPoint of Control, also known as the "fairest price to do business". It is the price level in the /ES where the greatest amount of volume in the prior RTH session traded. ShadowTrader measures the POC using volume but the traditional way is to mark off the widest point of the day's distribution where the most TPO's printed going across from left to right, indicating that that was the price where the most time was spent. It's important to pay attention to both the volume POC and the TPO POC. figures for /ESH7 and /NQH7 Futures are posted free every morning HERE. Click on any posts in the list on the left pane to see them in the main window. Don’t click on the ST logo as it will just refresh the page and you’ll get only the topmost post over and over. Click on the title or text.
Not much to say this morning ahead of the FOMC announcement at 2pm as overnight action is wound up tight and all inside of yesterday’s range. Entire overnight range is less than 4 handles and inventory is very balanced. The trade today is either later or not at all. Expect opportunities to be smaller ahead of the announcement and then some increased volatility after 2pm EST.
As you can see from the snapshot below, the odds of a hike are very high, so expect that it IS happening. The only question is how much and what their talking points will be at the 2:30pm press conference.
Have a cool day,
peter
