What is Market Profile (TPO)?

Time-Price-Opportunity letters and the bell-shaped auction.

Market Profile organises a session by Time-Price-Opportunity (TPO): each 30-minute bracket gets a letter, and every price it trades at receives that letter. Stack the letters and the day forms a distribution.

Each column of letters is a 30-min bracket. The widest row is the POC; the ~70% middle is the value area.

Unlike a candle, the profile shows where the market spent its time. Wide rows are prices the market accepted; narrow tails are prices it rejected. That single shift — from time-on-the-x-axis to price-acceptance — is what makes the market look like the auction it actually is.

AlgoPloy's market-profile chart is a first-class citizen alongside footprint — session structure is never watered down.