The profile beside price
On the right of the chart, with its reference levels projected across the bars.
Order flow · NinjaTrader 8
Screenshot of the tool running.
The profile that separates who bought from who sold.
A normal volume profile tells you how much traded at each price. This one also tells you which side it came from: how much was executed paying the offer and how much hitting the bid, level by level.
Aggression, not volume
Every row splits in two by who crossed the spread. Two levels with identical volume can have opposite splits, and a plain profile never shows that.
POC and value area
Built on the aggression profile, not the volume one. Where the fight was hardest is not always where most traded.
Absorption and bursts
Detection of large clustered trades, and of levels taking heavy aggression without price giving way.
Level by level
Each row's split with its figure. Blue for what traded at the offer, red at the bid; width is proportional.
What each term means
The names the indicator uses, and what each one means.
- Aggression. Volume executed at market, crossing the spread.
- POC. Point of Control: the busiest price in the profile.
- Value area. The rows holding the share of the total you set.
- Absorption. Heavy aggression on a level without price giving way.
- Burst. A cluster of trades in a very short window.
- Block trade. A trade far larger than the usual size.