Excess (auction excess)

Excess is a thin tail at the extreme of a profile: one or a few price levels at the high or low that traded very little before price was pushed back. It shows that the auction reached a price the other side rejected aggressively, which marks that extreme as a finished, accepted boundary.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

What the tail records

When price probes above the accepted range and sellers respond immediately, only a handful of contracts trade at the top levels before price is driven back down. On the profile those levels are thin: single TPO prints or very low volume rows. That thin section is excess. The market went too far, the other side said so, and the profile keeps a record of it as a tail.

The interpretation in auction market theory is that excess marks the end of an auction in that direction for the period. The extreme has been tested and rejected, so it becomes a reference boundary of the accepted range rather than an open question.

  • Excess at the high: buyers were rejected; thin levels at the top.
  • Excess at the low: sellers were rejected; thin levels at the bottom.
  • The longer the tail relative to the rest of the profile, the more decisive the rejection it records.

Excess in a footprint context

On a footprint chart, the same episode appears as a bar whose extreme levels show the aggressor side drying up and the opposite side responding. The senzoukria.com guide on volume profile calls the profile the map and the footprint the microscope: excess is seen on the map as a tail and on the microscope as the bid-versus-ask activity at those top or bottom levels.

Under the delta convention used on the site (delta equals ask volume minus bid volume per level), excess at the high tends to coincide with levels where the ask side went quiet and the bid side absorbed or pushed; it is a coincidence to check, not a definition.

In Senzoukria

On the Market Profile (TPO) overlay, the Single prints & tails toggle marks rows visited by one bracket only; the setting's hint states that inside the profile they are single prints (price moved fast) and at an extreme they are a buying or selling tail, which is the rejection excess describes. The Extend single prints option carries a dotted line from each single print to the next profile. On the Volume Profile (session) overlay, the same episode shows as thin rows at the top or bottom of the histogram. The Unfinished Auctions marker in the indicators list identifies the opposite condition on a per-bar basis (no aggressive buyer at the highest level, or no aggressive seller at the lowest), so a bar whose extreme is not marked is not thereby an excess: the two are different tests.

On the heatmap screen, the Volume profile panel is built over the Profile history window rather than the session, so a tail there belongs to that window.

Common mistakes

  • Confusing excess with a poor high or low. Excess is a thin tail; a poor extreme is a flat edge with no tail.
  • Counting a single-tick spike from a bad print as excess. Check the trades at that level before treating it as a rejection.
  • Treating excess as a guarantee that the level will hold. It records a rejection that happened; the next period can trade through it.
  • Reading a tail on an incomplete profile: a tail at the current extreme can fill in if the period is still developing.

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Frequently asked questions

What does excess look like on a volume profile?
A thin tail at the top or bottom of the histogram: one or a few price levels with much less volume than the levels next to them, then a quick return into the body of the profile. On a TPO profile it is a short run of single letters at the extreme. It shows that price briefly reached those levels and was pushed away.
Is excess bullish or bearish?
Excess at the low records that sellers were rejected, and excess at the high records that buyers were rejected. Auction market theory reads each as a finished auction in that direction for the period. Neither is a signal on its own; the level becomes a reference whose later test tells you whether the rejection still holds.

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