Value Area High (VAH)

Value area high is the top of the range where the market did most of its trading. Above VAH, price is outside the prices that accounted for the bulk of the volume. In market-profile language that area is higher than recent value. It can mean initiative buying, if price is accepted there, or a probe that will be rejected back into value. One print above VAH does not decide. Acceptance means time and additional volume above the line.

On a session profile, VAH is a reference for the rest of the day and often for the next session's open. An open above the prior VAH says the new session is starting outside yesterday's main trade. Traders then ask whether the open is accepted or whether price falls back inside. On a composite profile, VAH marks the top of a larger balance. A break that holds above it is a change of that balance. A break that returns inside says the balance still stands.

Holding above VAH, with the POC migrating up or with value building above the old area, is the bullish acceptance read. Retests of VAH from above that hold are a location for continuation, similar to any broken resistance. The volume history is the reason the level exists. The hold is still a price event.

A probe above VAH that cannot build volume, followed by a return inside the value area, is the bearish rejection. Fading that probe is a range trade. It fails on the day the probe is the start of a trend. The stop belongs back above the probe, not "a little above VAH," if the probe already extended.

Treating 70 percent as a natural law. It is a convention from market profile so that value is a majority of trade without being the whole range. A 60 or 80 percent setting moves VAH. Also mixing yesterday's VAH with a composite VAH and thinking they should agree.

VAH inherits the profile's bin size and its data. Shift the bins and the boundary moves. And value area is descriptive. The market is free to build a new value area higher up without tagging the old one again.