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Value Area Retestthe prices where the day actually did business

Evidence: ModerateProfessionalOrder flow · Volume profile

Instead of asking when the market traded, a volume profile asks where: how much activity happened at each price. The result is usually a fat middle where most business was done and thin tails where price passed through quickly.

The price with the most activity is the point of control, and the band containing the bulk of it is the value area. Both are levels with a genuine claim to meaning — they are where participants agreed, repeatedly, that price was fair.

Read the data page in this book before trading anything here. What your platform calls volume on a currency pair is a tick count, and every page in this family depends on knowing what that does and does not measure.

Category
Order flow · Volume profile
Timeframe
Profile built on the previous day · executed on M15
Suitable pairs
Index CFDs and futures first, where volume is real · majors with the tick-count caveat
Session
Profile from the previous full session · trade the current one
Indicators / tools
A volume profile of the previous session · its point of control and value area edges

Valid setup

OF-08 · VALUE AREA RETEST — VALID SETUP XAUUSD · M15 · the session opens above yesterday's value area, returns to its edge, and is rejected LONG 4310.71 4330.15 4349.60 4369.05 4388.49 4407.94 4427.39 TODAY — opened above value YESTERDAY'S VALUE AREA TP1 = 2R 1R TP1 = 2R, then yesterday's extreme ENTRY = M15 close rejecting the value area high VALUE AREA HIGH POINT OF CONTROL — where the target would be if price were accepted back STOP = 0.5 × ATR(14) inside the value area 1 2 3 4 4408.00 4372.00 4356.00 4340.00 4354.00 ① Yesterday: most of the business happened in this band ② Today opens above it — outside value ③ On spot FX this profile is tick counts, not size ④ Price returns to the edge and is rejected — enter ⑤ A close back INSIDE would mean the opposite trade ⑥ Flat by the session close — these levels decay fast

Exact rules

Entry

  • Build the previous session's profile and mark three levels: the point of control and the two value area edges.
  • Setup: the current session opens outside the previous value area and returns to its edge.
  • Trigger: an M15 close rejecting that edge — back out of the value area, in the direction the session opened.
  • If price closes inside the value area instead, the setup is over. Price accepted back into value usually travels to the point of control, which is the opposite trade.

Stop loss

  • Inside the value area, past the edge by 0.5 × ATR(14).
  • The edges are the invalidation: either price is accepted back into value or it is not, and there is little ambiguity about which.
  • Risk 0.5%–1%.

Take profit / exit

  • TP1 at 2R.
  • TP2 at the previous session's extreme in that direction.
  • Flat by the session close. The profile describes one session and its levels lose relevance with each one that passes.

Build Value Area Retest

Reading this page is free and always will be. Taking it is what costs — the complete MQL5 for the rules above, yours to keep, permanently. Five of them cost $10 and they never expire.

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Trading carries risk and most retail accounts lose money. Nothing on this page is financial advice or a recommendation to trade. The chart is an illustration of the rules on constructed candles — it is not a record of a trade and not a backtest.