Chart — TPO Profile Settings

When the chart is in TPO mode, a TPO tab appears in Chart Settings. TPO (Time-Price-Opportunity) builds a market profile: for each period it stacks a lettered block at every price the market traded, so the shape shows where price spent the most time — the value area, the point of control, and structural features like single prints and poor highs/lows.

A TPO chart with the classic market-profile references switched on: POC, value area, single prints, Initial Balance, poor high/low and profile VWAP.

About the screenshots

Every screenshot on this page starts from the same clean profile — daily anchor, 30-minute letters, 200-tick bins, every marker and line off — and changes only the setting being described. Use the Dark / Light switch above any image, and click an image to open it full size.

The clean baseline: each letter is one 30-minute period (A is the first), stacked at every price that period traded.

Reading a TPO profile

Letters — each letter is one TPO period. A is the first period of the profile, B the second, and so on. A row with many letters is a price the market kept returning to.
Point of Control (POC) — the row with the most letters: where the market spent the most time.
Value Area — the rows around the POC that hold a set share of the activity (70% by default), bounded by the Value Area High (VAH) and Value Area Low (VAL).
Single prints — rows with only one letter: price moved through too fast to build any acceptance.
Initial Balance — the range of the opening window, a reference for the rest of the day.

Profile Setup

Profile Setup.

Anchor Point

How candles are grouped into profiles: Day, Week, Month or Session. Day groups by trading day; Session groups by market session.

Session Start (UTC) (Session) — session anchors roll at this UTC minute, keeping overnight trading in one profile.
Week Starts (Week) — the first day used for weekly profiles: Sunday, Monday or Saturday.
Month Starts On (Month) — the calendar day used to roll monthly profiles.

Week

Session TPO profiles (dark theme) — Session

Bin Size (ticks)

The number of tick levels per TPO block. Higher values create wider price bands per letter: fewer, taller rows.

100 ticks

200 ticks

400 ticks

TPO Period (min)

The duration represented by each letter: 5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes. This is independent of the chart's candle timeframe.

15 min: more letters, wider profile

30 min

60 min: fewer letters, narrower profile

TPO Block Scale

Scales the width of the blocks without changing their price bins.

TPO Block Scale = 2.

Direction

Which side the stacked letters grow from. Left to Right (the default) anchors the first period at the left edge of the column; Right to Left anchors it at the right edge, so the profile's open and POC line up against the following session. Split profiles are time-ordered and keep their period columns either way. The Market Profile indicator has the same Direction option in its Basic Settings.

Period Candle

Draws the period's open, high, low and close as a candlestick in a slot just before its profile, in the chart's candle colours. The current session's candle keeps updating as it develops, so you can read the day's range and direction without leaving the TPO view.

Split Profile

Draws each period in its own column instead of collapsing the letters to the left, so you can follow the session period by period.

Split Profile on.

POC / VA Basis

Calculate the POC and value area from TPO Count (time) or from Volume allocated to each row.

POC calculated from TPO count (dark theme) — TPO Count

POC calculated from volume (dark theme) — Volume

Enable Level Extensions

The master switch for extending POC and value-area levels beyond their own profile. The Extend Naked POC and Extend Naked VA options below only take effect while it is on.

Block Appearance

Show Labels and Letter Color

Show Labels prints the letter on each block. Letter Color sets its colour; where that colour would be unreadable on a block, the letter switches to black or white automatically.

Show Labels off.

Coloring Mode

How the blocks are coloured.

Mode	What it shows
POC + Value Area	A neutral distribution with the POC row and the value area picked out.
Uniform Color	One colour for the whole profile (Uniform Color).
Gradient	Blends from Gradient Start to Gradient End across the periods.
Up/Down Direction	The whole profile takes the bullish or bearish colour, by whether it closed above or below its open.
Red-Blue Spectrum	A spectrum across price, from the profile low to its high.
Time Spectrum (A->Z)	A spectrum across time, from the first period to the last.

TPO coloured by POC and value area (dark theme) — POC + Value Area

TPO in one uniform colour (dark theme) — Uniform Color

TPO coloured with a gradient (dark theme) — Gradient

TPO coloured by direction (dark theme) — Up/Down Direction

TPO coloured with a red to blue spectrum across price (dark theme) — Red-Blue Spectrum

TPO coloured by time (dark theme) — Time Spectrum (A->Z)

Time-Based Gradient Overlay

Darkens earlier blocks so the progression of the session is visible on top of the chosen colouring mode.

TPO with earlier periods darkened (dark theme) — Time-Based Gradient Overlay on.

Distribution Color sets the default block colour.

POC Line

Setting	What it does
Show POC	Highlights the Point of Control — the price level with the most TPOs.
POC Color	Colour of the POC row.
POC Line Color, POC Width, POC Style	The POC line; style is Solid, Dashed or Dotted.
Extend Naked POC	Extends a profile's POC through later profiles until that price trades again.

TPO with the POC row and line shown (dark theme) — Show POC on.

TPO with naked POCs extended into later profiles (dark theme) — Extend Naked POC on (with Enable Level Extensions).

Value Area

Setting	What it does
Value Area %	The share of activity included in the value area (typically 70%).
Show Value Area	Picks out the blocks inside the value area.
Value Area Color	Colour of those blocks.
Show Value Area Background	Fills the value area with a background colour.
Show VAH / Show VAL	Draw the Value Area High and Low lines independently, each with its own colour.
VA Width, VA Style	Thickness and style of those lines.
Extend Naked VA	Extends VAH and VAL through later profiles until those prices trade again.

TPO with value area blocks shown (dark theme) — Show Value Area on.

TPO with a value area background (dark theme) — Show Value Area Background on.

TPO with VAH and VAL lines (dark theme) — Show VAH and Show VAL on.

TPO with naked VAH and VAL lines extended (dark theme) — Extend Naked VA on.

TPO with a 50 percent value area (dark theme) — Value Area % = 50: a narrower value area.

VWAP

Setting	What it does
Profile VWAP	Shows the volume-weighted price as a horizontal level in each profile.
VWAP Line Color / Width / Style	Appearance of the level.
VWAP Deviation Bands	Adds volume-weighted standard-deviation levels around the profile VWAP.
VWAP Band σ	The standard-deviation multiplier used by the bands.

Profile VWAP on.

TPO with VWAP deviation bands (dark theme) — VWAP Deviation Bands on.

Profile Markers

Profile Markers.

Setting	What it does
Show Single Prints	Highlights single-print zones — price levels with only one TPO.
Show First Block	Highlights the first TPO block (the open).
Show Last Block	Highlights the last TPO block (the close).
Show Poor High	Marks a poor high.
Show Poor Low	Marks a poor low.

Each marker has its own colour; poor highs and lows also have a line width and style.

TPO with single print zones highlighted (dark theme) — Show Single Prints on.

TPO with the first and last blocks highlighted (dark theme) — Show First Block and Show Last Block on.

TPO with poor high and poor low markers (dark theme) — Show Poor High and Show Poor Low on.

Auction & Initial Balance

The Auction and Initial Balance group of the TPO settings (dark theme) — Auction & Initial Balance.

Setting	What it does
Show Auction Type	Labels each session with its Auction Market Theory type (Open Drive, Trend Day, Neutral, and so on).
Show Initial Balance	Marks the Initial Balance — the range of the opening window.
IB Window (min)	Length of the opening window, used for the IB lines and for auction-type detection.

TPO sessions labelled with their auction type (dark theme) — Show Auction Type on.

TPO with the initial balance marked (dark theme) — Show Initial Balance on.

Volume Profile

A volume profile can be drawn alongside each TPO profile, so time at price and volume at price can be compared directly.

Volume Profile — General.

Setting	What it does
Show Volume Profile	Turns the companion profile on.
Show Profile Bars	Shows or hides its bars (its lines can still draw).
Profile Layout, Position, Width	Single or two sided, left or right of the TPO, and how wide.
Metric	Volume, Delta or Bid × Ask.
Value Area %	Value area of the volume profile, independent of the TPO's.
Override Bin Size, Bin Size (price)	Give the volume profile its own, finer bin size.

The remaining groups — Appearance, Color Palette, POC Line, Value Area Lines, LVN Lines, HVN Lines, Developing Profile, Auction, Labels, Composite Profile, Composite Lines and Highlight Conditions — work as described in the Volume Profile guide.

Position = Left

Position = Right

Metric = Delta

Tip

For day-trading, anchor by Day or Session, keep Value Area % at 70, and turn on POC, Value Area, Single Prints and Initial Balance — the classic market-profile read of where value is and where price moved too fast.