The volume bars under your chart show volume per time period. Volume Profile rotates the question 90 degrees: it shows volume per price level, drawn as a horizontal histogram along the side of the chart. The result is a map of where the market spent its time and money — and price behaves very differently in busy neighbourhoods than in empty ones.
| Term | Meaning | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| POC (Point of Control) | The single price with the most volume | Acts as a magnet; the market's "fairest" price of the period |
| Value Area | The band containing ~70% of volume | Inside it, expect rotation; leaving it on volume signals a repricing |
| HVN (High-Volume Node) | A bulge — heavy prior trading | Price slows, chops, gets absorbed — support/resistance made of receipts |
| LVN (Low-Volume Node) | A gap — little prior trading | Price moves through fast; nobody defends territory nobody owns |
An HVN is a level where thousands of positions have their entries. When price returns there, those positions act — defending break-evens, adding, exiting — which produces the sticky, grinding behaviour. An LVN has no such constituency; price crossed it in a hurry once and tends to again. This is the same logic as support and resistance and Fibonacci confluence, but measured from actual traded volume instead of drawn from wicks — which is why profile levels and classic levels agreeing is such a strong signal.
Before profiles, traders compressed volume into a single line:
Both are confirmation tools. A breakout that OBV/CMF refuse to confirm deserves the same suspicion as one on shrinking volume bars.
Volume Profile turns "support and resistance" from art into measurement: HVNs are walls built of positions, LVNs are corridors, and the POC is the magnet. Use OBV/CMF divergence as the early warning that a move's crowd is thinning.