Time/Price Profile charts: read where the market accepted value
Alexander Talei
Founder at Obermind
What Time/Price Profile shows
Most charts plot price over time. A Time/Price Profile (TPO / Market Profile) chart answers a different question: at which prices did the market spend the most time during a session?
Instead of watching candles march left to right, you see a horizontal histogram of time brackets at each price level. Dense rows mean the auction accepted value there; thin or empty rows mean price was rejected quickly.
Traders use profiles to locate:
- Fair value near the session’s most-traded prices
- Balance vs imbalance — is price rotating inside a range or breaking out to discover new value?
- Opening context — did the session start inside yesterday’s value or outside it?
Obermind ships Time/Price Profile as a first-class chart type in Obermind Pro Charts v2 (Platform 4.8.x), alongside candlestick, OHLC, and area modes.
How to open it
- Open a chart in the Terminal or on an Instrument page.
- Click the chart type control in the toolbar (or the trade context menu mirror).
- Select Time/Price Profile.
A faint area-style price line stays behind the profile so you still see where price traded while reading the matrix. Switch back to any classic type without losing your indicators or drawings.
What you see on the chart
The legend below matches the colour coding in Obermind and in the in-chart How to read this chart help modal.
Time brackets (TPO letters)
Sessions split into equal time blocks, each assigned a letter (A, B, C, …). Colours follow a purple → red gradient — purple is earliest in the session, red is latest.
A letter at a price means trading occurred there during that bracket. Row width shows time spent at that level — wider rows mean more accepted value.
POC — Point of Control
The price level with the most TPO letters, marked by a gold highlight band and a solid POC line. Use it as your primary fair-value reference for the session.
VAH / VAL — Value Area High and Low
Blue dashed lines mark where roughly 70% of session activity occurred. Trading inside the value area suggests acceptance; trading outside suggests the market is seeking new value higher or lower.
IBH / IBL — Initial Balance High and Low
Green dotted lines show the high and low of the first time bracket — the opening range. Staying inside often signals a balanced session; breaking out can signal a directional day is developing.
How to read it in practice
Profiles are context tools — combine them with your existing order-flow, liquidity, and risk rules rather than treating any single row as a standalone signal.
Wide rows
Accepted prices — the market lingered here rather than cutting through quickly.
Narrow rows
Rejected prices — price moved through the level without spending much time there.
POC moving higher across sessions
Value is shifting up; fair price may be repricing higher.
POC moving lower across sessions
Value is shifting down; acceptance may be migrating lower.
Open inside prior VAH / VAL
Balanced, range-like conditions are more likely at the open.
Open outside prior value
The market may be seeking a new fair price before settling into a range.
Single-letter rows
Single prints — levels touched by only one bracket. They often act as future support or resistance.
How sessions and brackets are derived
Sessions default to UTC calendar days for 24/7 markets. Bracket duration auto-scales with your chart interval:
- 1m or 5m chart30-minute brackets
- 15m chart1-hour brackets
- 30m chart2-hour brackets
- 1h chart4-hour brackets
- 4h chartDaily brackets (weekly sessions)
- 1d chartWeekly brackets (monthly sessions)
Each visible session draws its own profile anchored at that session’s bars, so you can compare acceptance zones day by day as you scroll through history.
In-product help
Tap the ? button on the chart toolbar (or the last item in the trade context menu) to open How to read this chart.
When Time/Price Profile is active, the help modal walks through the same legend — bracket colours, POC band, VAH/VAL dashes, IBH/IBL dots — plus the session and bracket rules above. Swatches match what you see on screen in both light and dark themes.
Screenshots and exports
Save screenshot captures the full chart frame — candle pane, indicators, axes, watermark, and the TPO overlay — as a single PNG. Use it for desk notes, compliance, or client commentary.
What to keep in mind
Time/Price Profile in Obermind is built from bar high/low data across each bracket. That produces a practical acceptance map for session context — useful for POC, value area, and opening-range reads even when tick-by-tick history is not in scope.
For print-level precision on individual trades, pair profiles with your existing tape and order-book tools. The chart gives you the structural map of where time was spent, not every individual fill.
When to use it
Time/Price Profile shines when you:
- Plan opening range strategies and need IBH/IBL context
- Judge whether a breakout is exploring new value or a false move outside the value area
- Compare overnight vs regular-hours acceptance on instruments with clear session breaks
- Teach junior traders where the market traded, not just when it spiked
Get started
Time/Price Profile is available on Obermind Platform 4.8.x with Pro Charts v2. Open your usual symbol, switch chart type, and use the help modal on your first session to learn the legend.
For a broader look at the charting upgrade that introduced this mode, see Obermind Pro Charts v2: a faster, fuller charting experience in Platform 4.8.1.
