Profile Shapes: Normal, P-shaped, b-shaped

A profile's shape is a fingerprint of the session. Before reading any single level, look at the silhouette: it tells you who was in control and how the day evolved.

Market Profile sessions cluster into recognizable shapes. Each shape encodes a different auction process and implies a different trading approach for the next session.

The Normal (bell curve) profile

A normal profile looks like a classic bell curve: wide in the middle, tapered at the extremes, roughly symmetric. Most TPOs cluster around a central POC, with single prints thinning out toward the high and low of the day.

What it means: the market was balanced. Buyers and sellers agreed on value, and price oscillated around that value for most of the session. No side dominated.

How to trade the next session:

• Expect mean reversion. Fade moves outside yesterday's Value Area that quickly return.
• Prior day's POC is the magnet for the open.

Normal days are the most common profile shape — about 60% of sessions — and the easiest to trade: buy low, sell high, target the middle.

The P-shape profile

A P-shape looks like the capital letter P: a wide base at lower prices, with a long tail extending upward, often with single prints on the way up.

What it means: price opened lower, established value early in a wide lower band, then rallied and printed single prints upward as buyers chased price higher. The wide base is acceptance; the thin upper tail is range extension driven by aggressive buying.

How to trade the next session:

• If price closed near the upper tail, momentum may continue. Buy pullbacks to the prior Value Area High.
• The wide base is strong support on pullbacks.

The b-shape profile

A b-shape is the mirror image of P: a wide top with a long tail extending downward.

What it means: price opened higher, established value in an upper band, then sold off with single prints downward as sellers pressed price lower.

How to trade the next session:

• If price closed near the lower tail, momentum may continue. Sell rallies to the prior Value Area Low.
• The wide top is strong resistance on rallies.

Shape and the next session's open

The most actionable rule: the open of the next session relative to the prior profile predicts the day type.

• Open inside prior VA → balanced day likely. Fade extremes.
• Open above VAH with acceptance → trend day up. Buy pullbacks.
• Open below VAL with acceptance → trend day down. Sell rallies.
• Open far outside the profile → drive in progress. Trade with the drive, do not fade.

Read the shape first, then the levels. The shape tells you what kind of day; the levels tell you where to act.