Value Zones [Influxum]

2024年11月29日

The volume of traded contracts at a specific price level is, in our opinion, one of the most critical components of any trading system. The area where price acceptance occurred, and the most contracts were traded, represents a very objective phenomenon on the chart, reducing the degree of discretionary trading. This is commonly referred to as POC – Point of Control – the point where the most units of an instrument were traded. Our Value Zones take this a step further by identifying additional local extremes, i.e., areas where significant trading volumes occurred locally at specific prices. This provides objective information about the points on the market where buyers and sellers agreed on a price, resulting in what is known as consolidation. This information can help identify the price levels or zones where aggressive buyer or seller behavior, and consequently a significant price reaction, might be expected. We do not perceive the POC or local extremes as mere price levels but rather as zones. The distribution of trades in the market is a stochastic process, and deviations can occur, which is why we extend local extremes and the POC with a coefficient reflecting the current session's volatility.

🟪General Settings
Session
Value Zones are always calculated for a specific time period. In this section, you can set whether you want to see Value Zones for 30-minute candles, hourly charts, 4-hour charts, daily, weekly, or monthly timeframes. Keep in mind the timeframe you are currently viewing. If you attempt to display monthly Value Zones on minute candles, the chart will typically load only 10,000 to 20,000 candles, representing a maximum of 20 days, which is insufficient for accurately determining monthly Value Zones.


Levels of Detail
To simplify working with Value Zones, you don’t need to manually set the size of a single row in the volume profile in terms of ticks. Simply choose how many rows the entire range of the selected session should be divided into. Local maxima will then be identified within the specified number of rows. The more rows you choose, the more detailed the Value Zones will be. However, this may lead to identifying local extremes too close to each other (in cases where consolidation has occurred for a longer period). We recommend an optimal setting of 50 to 100 rows to ensure the significant local extremes are effectively visualized.


Volume Type
An interesting metric is not just the volume traded at a price but also the ratio of buy and sell volumes – the delta. Based on the data available, this is not a precise tick-based or bid-ask delta but rather a delta derived from the volume of candles on lower timeframes. For daily sessions, for instance, we use minute candles. If a candle closes higher than it opens, it is considered positive delta. If it closes lower, it is negative delta. This helps identify whether buyers or sellers were more aggressive at a specific price level (not whether there were more buyers or sellers, as each trade always involves both sides).


🟪Heatmap
A heatmap visualizes the volume profile, displaying volume on a given row through color intensity. For standard volume, the intensity represents a single color. For delta, separate colors are used to represent positive and negative delta intensity.


Align
Choose whether the Heatmap will always appear on the right or left side. If set to the right, historical Heatmaps will display at the start of the next session after the session concludes. A developing session’s Heatmap will appear on the right in real time. If set to the left, the Heatmap will always appear at the start of the session it represents. For a developing session, the Heatmap is also on the left. Note that right after the session begins, the Heatmap may look unusual because there isn’t yet enough price data to calculate all the rows (e.g., the 50 rows set in Levels of Detail).


Heatmap Length
This determines the Heatmap’s length in terms of the number of candles.


Color Settings
You can configure colors separately for Volume and Delta modes. The color settings for POC are shared for both modes.

🟪Local Peaks
Draw Local Peaks
Here, you can set how local peaks (in addition to POC) will be displayed. If set to "None," neither POC nor any local extreme will be shown. You can choose to display POC and local peaks as lines, boxes, or both.


Number of Local Peaks
If set to 0 and a display mode for POC and local extremes (line, box, or both) is active, only the POC will be displayed. Any value higher than 0 will display that number of local extremes, as long as they are found. If the Level of Detail is set too low, no local extremes might be identified.


🟪Visuals - Historical & Current
To tailor your chart to your preferences, you can freely customize the colors for local peaks and POC, lines and boxes, and even differentiate between historical and developing values. The choice is entirely yours!