BDT Dashboards

Plain language. The Point of Control (POC) is the price level where the most volume has traded over a given window. Think of it as the price buyers and sellers keep gravitating back to — the market's recent "center of gravity."

HOW THIS DASHBOARD COMPUTES IT

Each card builds a volume profile: daily candles are bucketed by price, weighted by traded volume. We run it over two lookbacks — 30d (tactical) and 90d (structural). The POC is the highest-volume bucket. The Value Area (VAH / VAL) is the contiguous range around the POC that contains 70% of total volume — roughly one standard deviation of where price "agreed."

HOW TO READ A CARD

POC price — fair-value magnet. VAH / VAL — the top and bottom of the 70% Value Area. IN VA means current price sits inside that band (consolidation / accepted value). OUTSIDE means price has broken above VAH or below VAL.

The big arrow on each card tells you which way value is migrating: ↑ UP means the POC is drifting higher (accumulation) · ↓ DOWN means the POC is drifting lower (distribution) · · FLAT means value is stable. The little chart on each card is the 30d POC's drift over the last 90 days. Distance % shows where current price sits relative to that POC.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR TRADING

• Above POC + OUTSIDE → extended; the move is stretched relative to recent accepted value.
• Below POC + OUTSIDE → discount; price is trading below where most volume changed hands.
• Inside VA → consolidation; supply and demand are roughly balanced, breakouts from here are often more meaningful.

ORIGINS

Volume profile and the Value Area concept come from Market Profile, developed by J. Peter Steidlmayer at the CBOT in the 1980s as a way to read auction-market behavior intraday.