Which point of control should I use?

It depends on the question. For where most contracts changed hands, and where large positions may have been built, use the volume POC. For where the market spent its time and accepted price, use the TPO POC. Many traders keep both and pay attention when they diverge.

Why can I build a TPO profile without volume data?

Because a TPO only records that a bracket traded at a price, which the bar's high and low already show. Volume-based profiles need the volume at each price inside the bars, which is price-level data that plain candles do not carry.

TPO POC versus volume POC

A Market Profile's TPO point of control is the price where the market spent the most time, while a volume profile's point of control is the price where the most contracts traded. They often sit close together, but they diverge when heavy volume trades quickly at one price and slow, light trading lasts at another, and the gap between them says something about how the session was built.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

Two measures of the same idea

Both points of control try to locate the fairest price of the period. The TPO version counts brackets: a row visited by nine half-hour brackets outranks one visited by seven, whatever traded there. The volume version counts contracts: a price where 25,000 contracts changed hands outranks one with 12,000, however long either took. TPO profiles can be built from bar highs and lows; volume profiles need volume at each price.

A worked example

A session opens with a sharp drop to 4,990.00 on a news release, where 25,000 contracts trade in forty minutes. Price then recovers to 5,000.00 and rotates there slowly for the rest of the day on light volume. The volume point of control is 4,990.00, the price of the heavy morning trading. The TPO point of control is 5,000.00, where nine brackets traded. Neither is wrong: the volume POC shows where the most business was done, the TPO POC where the market settled in time.

When the gap matters

A large gap suggests two different phases: a fast, heavy one and a slow, accepted one.
When both coincide, time and volume agree on the fairest price, which makes the level more widely watched.
On thin overnight sessions, TPO counts accumulate on little volume, so the time-based POC is weaker evidence than it looks.
Compare them only on the same period and the same row height; both move with those settings.

In Senzoukria

The Market Profile (TPO) overlay's 'Profile type' chooses what is counted: 'TPO count (time)', or executed-volume types such as Ask / Bid, Delta, Delta % and Delta + Volume, which require real price-level data. 'TPO count + Delta' draws both side by side without mixing them: delta on the left with its own scale, TPO count on the right, and where the loaded bars carry no aggressor side the chart says so instead of drawing a zero. The TPO POC is the row with the most TPOs, ties going to the row closest to the middle of the profile, then to the lower price. The Volume Profile overlay gives the volume POC over its own period, and Session POC (developing) traces the volume POC of the session from the 17:00 Chicago open.

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Frequently asked questions

Which point of control should I use?: It depends on the question. For where most contracts changed hands, and where large positions may have been built, use the volume POC. For where the market spent its time and accepted price, use the TPO POC. Many traders keep both and pay attention when they diverge.
Why can I build a TPO profile without volume data?: Because a TPO only records that a bracket traded at a price, which the bar's high and low already show. Volume-based profiles need the volume at each price inside the bars, which is price-level data that plain candles do not carry.

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