The Description

A new Profile indicator has been added to the growing list of indicators available in MarketDelta. The Profile indicator is a close relative of the existing Price/Time Profile standalone chart type. Profiles allow the user to overlay a price-based profile over a traditional intraday chart. The Profile provides a "Price/Row" preference which dictates the height of each row. The width of each resulting row will represent how many bars during the session in which that row's price range was touched. If the periodicity of the chart is 5-minute, and the width of a row is 3 bars wide, then the range of three of the 5-minute bars for that session actually overlapped the price range of that row.

The widest row is called the Point of Control (POC). The Value Area (VA) is commonly considered the area in which 70% of the price action transpired. This percent level is adjustable, as some prefer to use alternate VA % levels such as 80%. Options for drawing the current and previous POC and VA lines are provided in the Profile preferences. Another option dictates how many sessions for which the Profile will be computed and displayed. The Profile may be drawn as Solid or Hollow Blocks, Solid or Hollow Ovals, Dots, or Lines. A "Hide Profile" checkbox gives the user the ability to hide the actual profile and draw only current and/or previous POC and VA lines. The "Current" and "Previous" POC and VA lines are also optional, as well as VA and POC labeling. 

One of the benefits of this indicator is the ability to also select start and end times to create custom volume or time profiles.  Watch this video for an example.

Profile Indicator Video Overview

The Presentation - more on Charts

Above is Daily Candle Chart of the e-Mini S&P (ES).  These are a couple of ways to builds charts with this indicator.  Add 2 profile indicators to get the monthly and yearly profile on one chart.

The Preferences

• Price and Time/Volume - This option controls whether "time" or "volume" is used when computing the profile(s).  If "time" is used, the width of each row in the profile represents the number of bars (over profile period/width) which hit the price range of that row.  If "volume" is used, the width of each row represents the volume traded in that rows price range.
• Hide Profile - If this checkbox is checked, the actual profile itself will not be drawn, allowing the user to draw the VA and POC lines alone.
• Compute Last ___ Profiles - This option controls how many profiles (sessions) are computed and drawn in the chart.  The color control to the right controls the color of the rows outside the value area.
• Price/Row (Height) - This option controls the "height" of each row of the profile, or the range of prices which each row represents.  If a value of 0.04 is specified, for instance, then potential rows would include 0.00 to 0.04, 0.04 to 0.08, ..., 25.08 to 25.12, ..., 100.40 to 100.44, etc.  If "Automatic" is selected, MarketDelta will use a reasonable height based on the trading range of the instrument and the timeframe involved.
• Price/Row (Height) - This option controls the period of time which each profile covers.  The "Automatic" option is chosen, a period of "last 100 days" will be used for daily, weekly, and monthly periodicities, while a period of "every 1 day" will be used for intraday periodicities.
• Time Per Profile - Controls how the profiles build through time. Automatic is default. Custom allows profiles to be built in custom time frames, like 60 minutes profiles, 3 month profiles, etc.  Dynamic uses a methodology explained here. 3 sessions is described here.
• Current - This checkbox controls whether the current VA and POC lines will be drawn.
• Previous - This checkbox controls whether the previous VA and POC lines will be drawn.
• Value Area - This controls the color, style, and width of the current and previous value area lines.  The value to the right dictates the % level of the Value Area.  The most common value area setting is 70%.
• Point of Control - This controls the color, style, and width of the current and previous point of control (POC) lines. 
• Std Dev Based VA - If this checkbox is checked, the POC will represent the volume/time-based average price, while the VA will be computed using a 70% standard deviation band based off of the average price POC.
• Label VA and POC - This checkbox controls whether the prices of the VA and POC lines will be labeled.
• Efficient Mode - It is on by default, and it forces the Profile into a much more efficient state where it processes the last 1-minute of data each minute right after the minute bar is completed.
• Draw As - This controls the drawing style used to draw the profiles.  Choices include "Solid Boxes", "Hollow Boxes", "Solid Ovals", "Hollow Ovals", "Dots", "Lines", "Volume Shading", "FP Shading", "Volume Shading (thin)".  When the PROF token is used in a scan, this control will change to one labeled "Result:" with options of "Upper VA (Curr)", "Upper VA 
  (Prev)", "Lower VA (Curr)", "Lower VA (Prev)", "POC (Curr)", and "POC (Prev)".
  • When "Volume Shading" is used there are additional options for coloring. One of them is Heat Map. See this video for information.

Sharing Peaks and Valleys Among Charts (When "All Bars" is selected)
The Profile Indicator has a new option which makes it easy to transfer peaks (or high volume nodes) and valleys (or low volume nodes) of composite profiles to other charts easily and efficiently. This allows the user to place the nearest three peaks and nearest three valleys on any chart without the overhead of increasing the overhead of expanding the viewing period of those charts and adding the Profile Indicator to those charts. Once chart computes the peaks and valleys and the other charts use that single calculation. This is implemented within the Profile Indicator by checking a new check box "Store 3 Peaks + 3 Valleys Into V#x thru V#y". The user specifies the series of user variables (V# variables) they would like the nearest three peaks and valleys stored in. The three nearest peaks will be stored in the first three user variables and the three nearest valleys will be stored in the next three variables. Once this is setup, the user can make use of the next two new features mentioned below to easily display these peak and valley lines on other charts.

RTL Token - more on RTL

The Profile indicator result can be accessed in the RTL language with the token PROF.  When the Profile is used in the context of a scan, signal, or custom indicator, a "Result" option is presented at the bottom of the preferences window, which dictates what value will result from the PROF token. The "Result" options include "Upper VA (Curr)", "Upper VA (Prev)", "Lower VA (Curr)", "Lower VA (Prev)", "POC (Curr)", and "POC (Prev)".