medium · Volume Profile Analysis auction-market-theory

A market opens, trades down to establish a low, then auctions higher for the rest of the session, closing on its high in a textbook trend day. The resulting profile is single-distribution with the point of control (POC) located near the session midpoint. An auction-theory purist argues this POC placement is misleading for inferring acceptance.

What is the most rigorous reason the day's POC tells you little about value acceptance here?

  1. On a directional trend day, time spent at each price is dominated by the steady migration of the auction rather than two-sided rotation, so the POC reflects transit through prices, not facilitation of trade at a fair level
  2. The POC on a trend day always forms at the session open because that is where the initial balance brackets the first hour of activity, biasing it away from true value
  3. Because the close is on the high, the POC should be re-anchored to the closing print, since auction theory weights the most recent acceptance most heavily
  4. The POC is invalid whenever volume rather than TPO count is used to construct it, as volume-based POCs ignore the time dimension that defines acceptance

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