Volume Profile in Futures: POC, VAH and VAL

The point of control is the price with the most traded volume in the profile — the fairest price of the session. The value area is the range containing roughly 70% of volume around it; its edges are the value area high and value area low. Price inside the value area is balance. Price outside it is imbalance, and imbalance is where trends live.

A high volume node is a shelf of accepted price. Price returning to one usually slows and chops there. A low volume node is a gap in participation — price moved through it quickly because nobody wanted to trade at that price. On a retest, low volume nodes tend to be crossed just as quickly, which makes them useful as targets and terrible as entries.

Open inside the prior value area: expect rotation, fade the extremes toward the POC. Open above value and hold: acceptance higher, look for pullbacks to the value area high to hold as support. Open above value and fail back inside: the breakout is rejected, and the prior POC becomes a magnet target.

A prior session's POC that has never been retraded is a naked POC. Markets have a strong tendency to revisit them because unfinished auctions attract price. They make excellent take-profit targets and reasonable reversal zones when they coincide with an FTS published level.

Volume profile gives you the map; order flow tells you what is happening at the moment you arrive. The highest-conviction intraday trade is price tagging a high volume node that lines up with a published A+ level, while the footprint shows absorption against the incoming direction.