Bar POC (point of control per bar)

The bar POC, or point of control per bar, is the price level inside a single bar where the largest total volume traded. It is the per-bar version of the volume profile's point of control, and its position inside the bar's range and its movement from one bar to the next are both used as orderflow readings.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

How it is determined

For each bar, the footprint holds a total volume per price level, bid plus ask. The bar POC is the level whose total is the highest. When two levels share the maximum, a rule is needed; the POC-based indicators in Senzoukria apply the Sierra Chart convention and select the lower price. Because those indicators store levels as tick indices, the POC is exact and does not depend on floating-point rounding of prices.

A bar with no traded levels has no POC. The chart leaves it unmarked and the related indicators output nothing for that bar rather than a placeholder value.

Two readings

  • Position in the range. A POC at the low of a bar means most of the bar's business was done at its lowest prices; at the high, at its highest. On a bar that closed up with its POC at the bottom, buyers accepted the low and price moved away from it; the same bar with its POC at the top shows late business at the highs, which is a different auction.
  • Movement between bars. Successive POCs that stay within a few ticks describe a market holding a price; a series of larger jumps describes a market searching for a new level. This is what POC migration measures.
  • A bar POC that later sits untouched by price becomes a naked POC, a level the market has not revisited since it was formed.

In Senzoukria

On the footprint screen, the POC bar setting highlights the point of control of each bar inside the candle; POC session does the same for the session profile beside the axis. In the Profiles family of the Footprint type chip, the bar POC is simply the longest bar of the Volume Profile mode.

Three pane indicators are built on it. POC Position % reports (POC price − low) / (high − low) × 100, so 0 is the bottom of the bar and 100 the top. POC Migration (ticks) reports the absolute distance between consecutive bar POCs in ticks, and POC Drift (ticks) reports the same distance with its sign, so an upward move is positive. Both need a known tick size; without a price grid, a distance in ticks has no meaning and the indicator stays empty.

Common mistakes

  • Using the bar POC as an automatic support or resistance line. It records where volume concentrated in one bar; whether it holds is decided by what trades there later.
  • Reading POC Position % on a bar that has only one or two levels; a two-tick bar has a POC at 0 or 100 by construction.
  • Comparing bar POC distances between instruments with different tick sizes, or between charts with different grouping steps.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between the bar POC and the session POC?
The bar POC is computed from one bar's levels; the session POC from every bar of the session, or of the selected profile window. A session can have one POC while each of its bars has its own. Senzoukria highlights them with two separate settings, POC bar and POC session, so either can be shown alone.
Which price wins when two levels have the same volume?
In the POC Position %, POC Migration and POC Drift indicators, the lower price, following the Sierra Chart convention, so the three indicators agree on the same level. The POC bar highlight drawn on the chart keeps the first level that reached the maximum in its own level order, so on an exact tie it can mark a different level than the indicators.
Does the bar POC depend on the bar type?
Yes, because the bar type decides which trades belong to the same bar. A 1-minute bar and a 500-volume bar over the same period slice the tape differently, so their POCs can be at different prices. Compare POC-based readings only across bars of the same type and size.

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