Rigid Volume Profile slices your lookback window into a fixed number of price levels and shows how much volume traded at each one, split into buying and selling pressure.

WHAT IT DRAWS

A horizontal histogram beside the price action, built from the last N bars. Each level's bar is split into bullish volume (from bars that closed up) and bearish volume (from bars that closed down), so you can see not just where trading happened but which side was doing it. Bars that closed unchanged split their volume evenly between the two.

A dashed Point of Control line marks the price level that traded the most volume in the window, labelled with its exact price.

Two value-area lines bound the levels that account for 70% of the window's volume, each labelled.

A volume analysis table reports total, up and down volume with percentages, and a sentiment reading based on which side dominates.

HOW TO USE IT

Volume profiles describe where trading actually happened, rather than where price merely travelled. A level that absorbed a lot of volume is a level many participants care about; a thin part of the profile is a price range the market moved through quickly.

Read the Point of Control as the window's centre of gravity. Read the value area as the range where most of the business was done. Read a thin gap between two heavy nodes as a zone price tends to cross rather than linger in. Watch which side of the split dominates a level when price returns to it.

The window is yours to choose and the picture changes with it, so pick a lookback that matches the decision you are making. A 100-bar profile answers a different question from a 500-bar one.

KEY SETTINGS

Fixed Analysis Period sets the lookback in bars, 50 to 2000. Profile Resolution sets how many price levels the range is divided into, 50 to 400; fewer levels read like a classic profile, more give fine detail. Display Mode offers Side by Side, Stacked and Split. Profile Width scales the histogram as a percentage of the lookback. Volume Filter hides levels below a percentage of the busiest one. Show Volume Delta adds a marker where one side clearly dominates. Every colour is adjustable, and the analysis table can be moved to any of nine positions or turned off.

Use Visible Range switches the lookback to the bars currently on screen instead of a fixed count.

INDICATOR TYPE AND WINDOW

Chart overlay. It draws on the price chart itself, not in a separate pane.

TIMEFRAMES AND INSTRUMENTS

Any timeframe. It is most useful intraday, from M5 to H4, where a session's volume distribution is a meaningful object.

Works on any instrument whose feed carries volume. On forex that is tick volume, the number of price updates per bar, which is a proxy for activity rather than traded size. On index and commodity CFDs some brokers supply real exchange volume, and the profile is more meaningful there. On an instrument with no volume at all, nothing is drawn.

WHO IT IS FOR

Traders who already work with volume profiles and want one with an adjustable fixed grid and an explicit buying and selling split, rather than a fixed session profile.

TRIAL

A trial edition is attached to this product. It is the complete indicator with every setting available, restricted to EURUSD. The full version removes that restriction and adds nothing else.

TECHNICAL NOTES AND LIMITATIONS

The profile is recalculated on every tick of the forming bar, so the Point of Control and the value area move within a bar and settle when it closes. This is by design. Nothing here is a closed-bar signal.

At Profile Resolution above 166 the lowest price levels are not drawn. This is a deliberate limit of the design, which reserves a fixed pool of drawing objects and uses three per price level; the Show POC Line and Show Value Area toggles each free one. Keep Profile Resolution at 166 or below to see the full profile.

The value area is built by ranking levels by volume and taking them in that order until 70% is reached, then reporting the highest and lowest price among them. It is therefore usually wider than a value area built by walking outward from the Point of Control.

Because the profile is built from your broker's volume, two brokers will not produce an identical profile from the same market.

AccessRights is None: the indicator places no orders, modifies nothing, and reads no account data.

SUPPORT

Documentation covering every parameter, the settings that surprise people, and a troubleshooting guide ships with the product. Questions are welcome through the Discussion tab; a useful report names the symbol, broker, timeframe, cTrader version and the settings changed from default.

Trading involves risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results.