Sierra Chart Volume Profile Templates

What a Sierra Chart volume profile shows

A normal chart shows you where price went and when. A volume profile shows where the business was done. It turns the volume sideways and draws a bar at every price: the longer the bar, the more contracts traded there. In Sierra Chart the study is called Volume by Price.

The market is an auction. Its job is to bring buyers and sellers together and do business. Where both sides agree on price, volume builds up. Where one side is missing, price moves on quickly and leaves little volume behind. The volume profile makes that auction visible.

High and low volume nodes

• High volume nodes (HVN). The thick areas of the profile. That is where the market likes to trade the most and where most of the business was done. HVNs work like a magnet and price tends to get pulled back to them.
• Low volume nodes (LVN). The thin areas of the profile. The market traded very little there because it lost interest. An LVN can act as support or resistance. From there price often gets pulled back to the last HVN or moves on to the next one.
• Point of Control (POC). The price with the most volume of the profile, basically the biggest HVN. Several of our templates extend the POC of each session to the right until price trades through it again. When price enters the territory of a prior session, its untested POC is a likely target, because the market likes to retest its HVNs.

Value Areas

The Value Area is the price range where most of the volume traded, usually 70% of it. Its upper edge is the Value Area High (VAH) and its lower edge the Value Area Low (VAL). It shows where the market found fair value in that session.

Comparing the Value Areas of several days tells you what the market is doing. When several days in a row share a similar Value Area, the market is balancing and the edges of that area are where trades tend to set up. When a new day builds value outside the old range, the market is trending. As long as it keeps trending, the Value Areas and even the highs and lows of prior days get rejected. When the market breaks back into yesterday's Value Area, that usually comes with a retest of yesterday's POC.

Delta and volume profiles

A classic volume profile shows how much traded at each price. A delta profile shows who was aggressive there: the volume bought at the ask minus the volume sold at the bid. Positive delta means aggressive buyers were in control at that price. Negative delta means aggressive sellers were.

Several of our templates overlay the delta on the volume profile, so you read both in one place: how much business was done at a price and which side pushed it.

Built around the session

A profile is only as useful as the time it covers, so every template is set up for a specific session:

• Regular session (RTH). One profile per regular trading session, when the cash market is open and most participants are active. Used in the Daily RTH Volume Profiles, Volume Profiles RTH and Hologram and the RTH profiles of our orderflow charts.
• Overnight and RTH separately. The overnight session gets its own profile, so you see where value formed overnight and whether the regular session accepts or rejects it. Used in the ES Renko Chart with day-generated Levels and the Range Footprint Delta Volume.
• Weekly. One profile per week shows the bigger themes before you look at a single intraday bar. Used in our weekly TPO templates, next to the TPO.
• Visible bars. A composite profile or hologram over everything on the screen sums up the levels of the last days at a glance.
• All bars in chart. A profile over every bar loaded in the chart, including the ones that are not visible in the current view.

The templates are preset for the session times of the market they are made for. On another market, match the session times to your instrument and the profiles work the same way.

Which volume profile template fits you?

New to volume profiles

• Daily RTH Volume Profiles with Candlestick Crimson: a multi-day RTH session template that focuses on the volume profile of each session, with numbers for range, volume, delta and POC. For ES, NQ, Crude Oil and Gold, with an Average Daily Range graph.
• 30MIN Daily Volume Profiles: the price map. A profile with Value Area and POC for every day plus a composite profile and automatic weekly and monthly highs and lows. For ES, NQ, Crude Oil and Gold.

More daily profiles

• Daily RTH Volume Profiles with Candlestick: the same idea as the Crimson version in the original colors.
• Volume Profiles RTH and Hologram: daily RTH profiles with a highlighted Value Area, extended POCs and a hologram over all visible bars.

Weekly profiles

• TPO Weekly Profiles Crimson: shaded weekly TPO with a weekly volume profile next to it, preset for ES.
• Custom Weekly TPO Shaded with Volume Profile: weekly TPO and volume profile with extended POCs and singles, preset for ES.

Full session with day levels

ES Renko Chart with day-generated Levels shows separate overnight and RTH profiles together with every important level of the day, drawn automatically.

Profiles inside orderflow charts

• Range Footprint Delta Volume: a volume profile with delta overlay that resets for the day and the overnight session, for ES and NQ.
• ES RTH Footprint with Volume Profiles and DOM: an RTH volume profile with a delta profile of the visible bars next to the footprint.
• Orderflow Suite Crimson with Custom Studies: an RTH volume profile with delta on a zoomed-in tick chart, for ES, NQ, Crude Oil and Gold.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin 30MIN with Daily Volume Profiles: daily profiles with Value Area and POC, a composite profile and cumulative delta on the 30-minute BTC chart.

Complete setup

The Crimson Day Trading Suite combines the weekly, daily, 30-minute and overnight profiles into one top-down workflow, for ES, NQ, Crude Oil and Gold.

Which Sierra Chart package do you need?

Volume by Price is a standard Sierra Chart study. For the pure volume profile templates we recommend Sierra Chart Package 10 or higher. Templates that combine the profile with TPO, a footprint or market depth need Package 11.

Questions

What is the difference between a volume profile and a TPO?

A volume profile counts the contracts traded at each price. A TPO (Market Profile) counts the time price spent there. Our weekly templates show both side by side.

Which markets are the templates made for?

Most templates are preset for ES. Several come with optimizations for NQ, Crude Oil and Gold, which you choose on the product page. The session-based profile templates work on any market once the session times match your instrument.

How do I install a template?

After checkout you download the template and import it into Sierra Chart. The steps are explained in our installation guide.