Value Area Rotation Analyzer

Paste yesterday's bars with volume and the analyzer builds the profile: point of control, the 70% value area, and the single prints where price moved too fast to trade. Then paste today's bars so far and it reads where you are against value. Opened outside and traded back in for 2 closes: that's the 80% rule from the CBOT Market Profile handbook and Dalton's Mind Over Markets (1990), and the play is a rotation to the other side of value. Inside value all day: fade the value area edges to the POC. Outside value and holding: acceptance, and the fade is off. Volume is spread evenly across each bar's range into 40 price bins, which is a volume profile, not a TPO count; the levels land within a bin of each other.

How it builds. The session's high-to-low range is cut into 40 bins. Each bar's volume is spread evenly over the bins its range covers. POC is the bin with the most volume. The value area starts at the POC and grows by adding whichever neighbor, above or below, has more volume, until it holds 70% of the session's volume. Single prints are runs of 2 or more bins outside value with under 10% of the POC bin's volume; they mark where price moved fast and left no two-sided trade, and they get revisited. The read. Open outside value, then 2 consecutive closes back inside: the 80% rule is on, target the far edge of value, stop back outside the near edge by a bin. Open and trade inside value: rotation day, fade VAH and VAL to the POC. Outside value with 2 or more closes there: acceptance, no fade, the profile is moving. 1 close inside after an outside open, or 1 close outside: wait for the second. Keyboard: Enter builds, 1 to 3 load the examples.

Educational tool only, not financial advice. The 80% rule got its name from a tendency, not a guarantee, and it was written for 30-minute periods. On 5-minute bars, 2 closes is 10 minutes and means a lot less.

Built by Jason Parker, founder of Trading Ranges.

Built by Jason Parker, founder of Trading Ranges.