POC Drift (ticks) Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
POC Drift plots how far the point of control moved between two consecutive bars, expressed in ticks. A positive value means the bar's highest-volume price sat above the previous bar's, a negative value means it sat below, and zero means the point of control stayed on the same tick.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
POC Drift (ticks) ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Tape & flow group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn in its own panel below the chart.
What POC Drift (ticks) measures
The value is the difference between the tick indices of the two points of control, computed as exact integer arithmetic rather than as a price subtraction, so the reading is a whole number of ticks. When two price levels tie on volume inside a bar, the lower price is taken as the point of control, following the Sierra Chart convention. No value is produced for the first bar of the series, for a bar with no volume, or when the instrument's tick size is unknown, since 'in ticks' has no meaning without the grid.
The formula, as implemented
This is not a description of how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
Dérive du POC : déplacement du POC en TICKS entre barres consécutives (POC[i] − POC[i−1], en indices de tick — exact, arithmétique entière). ÉGALITÉ de volume → prix le plus bas (Sierra, choix du repo, via `barPocLowTie`). Première barre, barre sans volume ou tick inconnu → null (sans grille, « en ticks » n'a pas de sens).
How to read it
- Consecutive readings of the same sign describe a point of control migrating steadily in one direction, which is a different statement from the bar's close moving.
- Readings oscillating around zero describe a volume centre holding in place while price fluctuates around it.
- A single large jump usually means the highest-volume price relocated to another part of the bar's range; check the footprint to see whether the previous area was abandoned or simply overtaken.
- A drift of one tick can come from the tie rule rather than from a genuine relocation, so single-tick readings deserve less weight than larger ones.
- Compare drift with price direction: a point of control drifting against the bar's direction describes volume building behind the move rather than with it.
Parameters and defaults
Only colour and post-smoothing are exposed. Smoothing defaults to 1, which plots the raw tick difference; raising it averages over that many bars, which turns the spiky series into a slower migration curve while delaying its turns. There is no tie or reference setting — the lower-price tie rule is fixed.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoothing | number | 1 | 1 – 200 |
What it does not show
The indicator looks only at two consecutive bars, so it says nothing about where the point of control sits within a session or relative to a longer profile. It ignores the shape of the volume distribution: a bar with a sharp peak and a bar with two nearly equal peaks can report the same point of control. Ties always resolve to the lower price, so when the two busiest levels of a bar carry the same volume the reported point of control sits one tick below the alternative, and the drift moves with it. On bar types where volume is thin per bar, the point of control can move erratically between neighbouring ticks without describing any real relocation.
Using it in Senzoukria
Add it from the Indicators panel of any footprint chart or candle chart. It runs on futures data from Rithmic or Databento and on crypto pairs from Binance and Bybit, on the same engine — the calculation does not change with the venue, only the data feeding it does. Market data subscriptions are billed by the provider, separately from the app.
Related indicators
- Tape Speed — Tape & flow
- Diagonal Imbalances — Tape & flow
- Stacked Imbalances — Tape & flow
- Absorption Score — Tape & flow
- Unfinished Auctions — Tape & flow
- Effort vs Result — Tape & flow
See the full indicator library, or start with the order flow guide if you are new to reading aggression, delta and absorption.
Frequently asked questions
- What does POC drift tell you?
- It tells you how far the highest-volume price moved from one bar to the next, in ticks. That is a statement about where trading concentrated, which can differ from what the close did. A point of control drifting in one direction over several bars describes a volume centre relocating; readings around zero describe a centre that held.
- How are ties handled when two levels have the same volume?
- The lower of the two prices is taken as the point of control, the convention used by Sierra Chart. The rule is applied consistently to both bars in the comparison. It is worth knowing because it means a drift of exactly one tick can come from a tie rather than from a genuine change in where volume concentrated.
- Is this the same as the daily POC moving?
- No. This indicator compares the point of control of one bar with that of the bar immediately before it, so it measures bar-to-bar movement on the chart's timeframe. A daily or session point of control is computed over an entire profile and moves far more slowly; the two answer different questions.