Prior Value Areas and Naked POC Levels
How often is a prior session's POC or value area traded again, compared with any price at the same distance?
The profile uses 30-minute periods, a 70% value area and a row size that gives about 45 rows per typical session, like Session Profile. A level counts as traded when a bar of a later regular session trades it; overnight trading does not count. Charts from 1 to 60 minutes.
One of our guides' tables on the same thing the indicator measures, with its sample and its date range.
The prior session's POC, VAH and VAL: how often they are traded again, against a price at the same distance
ES
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| Level · window | Traded | Control at the same distance from the open | Reading | Cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior session POC · next session | 52.7% | 51.0% | same as chance | 3,875 |
| Prior session POC · 5 sessions | 76.6% | 76.6% | same as chance | 3,875 |
| Prior session VAH · next session | 51.6% | 51.5% | same as chance | 3,875 |
| Prior session VAH · 5 sessions | 77.5% | 75.8% | same as chance | 3,875 |
| Prior session VAL · next session | 48.4% | 45.8% | same as chance | 3,875 |
| Prior session VAL · 5 sessions | 72.4% | 74.1% | same as chance | 3,875 |
| POC untouched the next day · 5 sessions after | 54.6% | 54.4% | same as chance | 1,803 |
n = 3,875 · 2010-06-11 to 2026-10-16 · historical futures data
ES regular session (9:30-16:00 ET), 11-Jun-2010 to 16-Oct-2026: 3,875 sessions whose next 5 sessions are on the same contract (no contract change inside the window). Profile of 30-minute periods; POC = the row with the most TPOs; VAH and VAL = the edges of 70% of the TPOs, grown from the POC; each level is named by the lower price of its row. Traded = a later regular session trades that price (its low at or below the level and its high at or above it). Control = the price at the same distance from the next session's open, on the other side of it, in the same sessions. 'POC untouched' = the POC the next session did not trade; measured over the 5 sessions after it, with the control around the open of the first of them. Reading: each level is compared with its control with a paired test (McNemar), and a cell only counts as different if it survives a false-discovery control (Benjamini-Hochberg at 5%) over every comparison of the table; otherwise 'same as chance'. No cell differs from its control: same as chance. Distance and frequency only: a level close to the open is traded often because it is close, and so is the control at the same distance. It is what happened, not a signal.
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Key Levels and Setup State fix each level when its period or window ends; only the table updates inside the bar. The Session Profile of the session in progress changes until the close, and a finished session's profile no longer changes.
The data of the chart you open them on. The historical frequencies are embedded in the indicator and say up to which date they were measured and over how many sessions.
Because a historical percentage describes how much and how often the market moved in the past, not where it will go today. That is why every figure comes with its sample and none of them suggests trades.
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