What are high- and low-volume nodes (HVN, LVN)?

Volume nodes are the peaks and valleys of a volume profile. A high-volume node (HVN) is a price, or a band of prices, where a lot of volume piled up: the market spent time there and agreed on price. A low-volume node (LVN) is a price the market moved through quickly, with little trading. Together they describe the terrain price has to cross.

What it looks like on the chart

The footprint above draws each row as a histogram bar whose length follows its volume, so every bar reads as a small volume profile. The long yellow rows are the bars' busiest prices — 19 in the first bar, 6.0 in the bar printed V: 22, 9.4 and 21 further right — the peaks of each bar's profile. Between them sit short rows: 0.07, 0.15, 0.01 — prices where almost nothing traded before price moved on. Those are the valleys.

How traders read it

• HVNs hold price. A price that traded heavily is a price both sides accepted, so when price returns it tends to slow down and trade there again.
• LVNs let price through. A thin price was crossed fast once and is often crossed fast again. Its edges are where a move out of a high-volume area tends to stall — or speed up.
• Between two HVNs, the LVN in the middle is the gap between two areas of value. Price leaving one node often travels to the next.

On TapeHawk

On the footprint, Volume nodes (off by default) outline them bar by bar, measured against the bar's own POC: a row that reaches HVN % of the POC's volume (70% by default) gets a gold outline, a row at or under LVN % (15%) a grey one. The top and bottom rows of a bar are never marked as low nodes. For a whole session, the Volume Profile indicator shades HVN and LVN bands across the chart, found either as local peaks and troughs of the profile or by a percentage of the POC, and keeps the busiest and deepest of them.