A precise glossary of every term used inside the AMT Desk curriculum. Definitions are written from the trading-desk perspective — no textbook paraphrasing, no filler. Filter to jump to a term.
Sustained two-way trade at a price or within a range, indicating that both buyers and sellers agree value resides there. Measured by time spent, volume traded, and the absence of swift rejection. Acceptance is the auction's confirmation that price has fulfilled its job — facilitating trade — and is the prerequisite for any read that a level has become structural.
The current session's value area calculated in real time, before the session has closed. The developing VAH, VAL, and POC update continuously as new TPOs print and volume accumulates. These are the live numbers the desk watches intraday; the final, accepted values are written down only after the bell, and frequently differ meaningfully from where the area sat mid-session.
Price exploration at a session extreme that finds no two-way trade — a tail of single-TPO prints. Excess at the high means sellers convincingly rejected an upside probe; excess at the low means buyers did the same below. Clean excess is among the highest-conviction evidence of a true rejection and tends to mark genuine, defended turning points rather than mere pauses.
Any move that prints outside the Initial Balance range during the balance of the session. An IB extension up that is accepted is a buying-tail or trend-up signature; the inverse below. Failed extensions — those that revert back inside the IB and stay there — are some of the cleanest setups in the framework, because the market itself has just shown you that the extension was unwanted.
The price range established during the first hour of regular-hours trading — the first two 30-minute TPO periods. The IB is the day's reference frame: every subsequent move is graded relative to it. Whether the rest of the session respects, extends, or breaks this range is one of the first structural reads the desk makes about the character of the day.
A graphical organisation of price by time using letter-coded 30-minute TPO blocks, originated by J. Peter Steidlmayer and the CME in the 1980s. Each price level shows how many half-hour periods printed there, producing a horizontal distribution that reveals where the auction spent time and where it merely passed through. Market Profile is the visual language of Auction Market Theory.
A prior session's Point of Control that has not yet been revisited by subsequent sessions. Markets show a strong empirical tendency to retest naked POCs because they represent unfinished business — price levels where significant trade was facilitated but not since reconfirmed. Untested naked POCs sitting above or below current value are among the most reliable magnets on the chart.
The price level at which the greatest number of TPOs traded during the session. The POC is the session's gravitational centre — the price the market most agreed was fair while the auction ran. It is a time-based read; its volume counterpart is the VPOC. A migrating POC during the session is one of the highest-conviction tells that fair value itself is shifting.
Any new high or new low printed after the Initial Balance has closed. Range extensions are graded by direction, magnitude — modest probe versus full IB-extension — and follow-through, meaning accepted versus failed. Taken together they form the day's volatility signature and dictate which playbooks are appropriate to deploy in the second half of the session.
Rapid, one-sided directional price movement away from a level, indicating that the auction failed to find two-way trade there. Rejection at value-area edges, prior POCs, or session extremes is one of the highest-conviction reads in the framework. It is the inverse of acceptance — and where acceptance confirms a level, rejection invalidates it.
Price oscillation between two reference levels — typically between VAH and VAL, or around the POC — without a sustained break of either. Rotational sessions are balance sessions: the market is comfortable, the auction is doing its job, and the desk plays the edges rather than chasing direction. Identifying a rotational day early is the difference between a clean session and an over-traded one.
Prices that printed in only one 30-minute TPO period during the session. They indicate rapid movement through a level with no two-way trade established. Single prints below or above value are exhaust signatures and tend to act as magnets — markets often return to fill them, because they represent unfinished auction business.
The unit of measurement in Market Profile. Each 30-minute period of the regular-hours session is represented by a letter — A, B, C, and so on — and every price that traded during that period prints one TPO at that level. The TPO is the operational answer to the question: how long did price spend here, in 30-minute units?
The upper boundary of the Value Area — by statistical convention, the highest price within the range that contains 70% of session volume. VAH is the single most-watched intraday resistance level by institutional desks, because crossing it is the precise moment at which the session is no longer trading inside accepted value and has moved into price discovery.
The lower boundary of the Value Area — the lowest price within the range containing 70% of session volume. The mirror of VAH: the single most-watched intraday support level. A test of VAL that is accepted (the auction continues to two-way trade below it) tells a very different story than one rejected (the auction snaps back into value).
The price range containing 70% (by convention) of the session's traded volume, centred on the Point of Control. By definition, this is where the market agreed value resided. Prices outside the value area are, by construction, in price-discovery territory — the auction is probing to determine whether a new level of value will be accepted or rejected.
A graphical organisation of volume traded at each price level over a session or a composite period. Where Market Profile counts time, Volume Profile counts contracts. Both produce a Point of Control; they sometimes agree and sometimes do not. The disagreement is itself signal — typically pointing to where the real institutional business was done.
The price level at which the greatest volume traded during the period. Distinct from the TPO-based POC: the POC measures time at price, the VPOC measures contracts at price. When VPOC and POC disagree the volume read typically carries the higher institutional weight, because it identifies where business — rather than mere observation — actually occurred.