Everything the indicator draws, what each element means, how the four signal strengths escalate, and the exact configuration to run it from. Read this once end to end before your first session with it.
▶ Volume Profile w/Pre-Market — Full Walkthrough
Access is invite-only on TradingView. Once your username is added, the script appears under your Invite-Only Scripts list.
Four separate groups of participants trade the same instrument at four different times of day, and none of them coordinate with each other. The indicator profiles each one independently rather than blending them into a single distribution — that separation is the entire point.
Overnight positioning while the US sleeps. Typically the thinnest of the four, which makes its point of control unusually meaningful — thin tape means the price that held did so without much help.
European desks arrive with real size. London's value area frequently frames the entire US morning range. When London and Pre-Market agree on a price, pay attention.
Thin tape, decisive prints. This is where US participants commit before the bell. Pre-Market highs and lows are the most frequently tested levels of the entire session.
The cash session. Deepest participation of the four, and the reference tomorrow gets measured against. Its point of control is the day's fairest price by definition.
The single price where the most volume traded during that session. This is the session's centre of gravity — the price the most participants agreed was fair.
Trade it as a magnet when price is away from it, and as support or resistance when price is testing it.
The price range containing the bulk of that session's volume, bounded by the Value Area High (VAH) and Value Area Low (VAL). Inside the value area, price is doing business. Outside it, price is exploring.
The edges matter more than the middle. VAH and VAL are where acceptance gets decided.
Each volume node is colored by which side did the work at that price. This is the difference between knowing volume happened and knowing who did it.
A high-volume node built by sellers is a supply shelf. The same node built by buyers is a demand shelf. They behave differently on the retest.
High and low for every session, each drawn in that session's own color, so you can tell at a glance whether price is breaking Asia's high or London's.
When two sessions share a high within a few ticks, that price is defended by two different groups.
Thick bars in the profile are high-volume nodes — prices that absorbed a lot of activity. Thin bars are low-volume nodes — prices the market passed through quickly.
Expect price to slow at high-volume nodes and travel fast through low-volume nodes. Target the far side of a gap, not the middle.
Every color on the chart carries meaning. Learn these five and you can read the chart without reading a single label.
The engine fires when price returns to a volume reference on unusually heavy volume for that time of day. Strength is a measure of how many independent references agree at that price — not how big the candle is, and not how fast price moved.
One volume reference in play.
Awareness, not a trade. Mark the level and move on. Trace tells you where to look, not where to enter.
A second independent reference agrees at that price.
Tradeable with confirmation. Wait for your own trigger — a rejection wick, a reclaim, a VPAX absorption print. Don't enter on the Build alone.
Three agree. Different participants, same price.
This is your bread and butter. Three uncoordinated groups defending one price is real structure. Trade it with your standard size.
Four or more. Maximum agreement, and rare.
Apex prints a handful of times a month, not a handful of times a day. When it fires, it is the highest-conviction read the indicator produces — and if it breaks, the break is equally significant.
Every signal draws a line at the exact level it fired against. This is the most practically useful thing on the chart, because it removes the guesswork from two decisions at once.
Flags when price meets the previous day's high or low with real participation behind it. This is the difference between a genuine test and a drive-by tag.
A prior-day high tagged on thin volume usually gets taken out. The same high tagged with a touch marker is being contested.
Previous day and previous week high, low and close are drawn on the chart — but they are not treated as static lines. The script runs across yesterday's completed volume distribution and scores every node for continued relevance against today's developing structure, weighted by how much participation is still defending it.
Only the references that survive that scoring get passed into the signal engine. The rest are drawn for context but carry no weight toward a signal.
Every setting, what it does, and how to run it. The defaults are set to the configuration most traders should start from — the notes below tell you when to deviate and why.
Turn off only if you trade a market where the Asian session carries no meaningful volume. For NQ and ES, leave it on.
Leave on. London's value area frames the US morning more often than any other session's.
Never turn this off. It's the session the product is named for, and its highs and lows are the most tested prices of the day.
Leave on. On a 3-minute chart during a busy session you may prefer it off to reduce clutter, but you lose the day's fairest-price reference.
Always on. The POC is the single most useful line each profile produces.
On. If your chart feels crowded, turn off value areas for Asia first — it's usually the least consequential of the four.
On. Without it you can see that volume happened but not which side did it, which removes most of the edge.
On. These are the lines price actually reacts to intraday.
On. This is the reason you bought the indicator.
Leave at Trace for your first two weeks so you see the full range of what fires and how often. Once you know the rhythm, raising the floor to Build cuts the noise substantially.
On. These define your invalidation. Trading without them means guessing your stop.
On. Cheap on screen space, high in information.
On. Previous day high, low and close feed the engine and are among the most-tested prices in any session.
On for 30-minute and above. On a 3-minute chart they sit far off screen most of the day — turn them off if you scalp exclusively.
Medium keeps candles readable through the profile. Raise it only if you're presenting or recording.
Small on desktop. Bump to normal if you run a large monitor or check charts on a phone.
The work happens before the bell. By 9:30 you should be executing a plan, not building one.
Price returns to a price where three or more sessions stopped, and the engine fires Convergence or Apex. The most reliable setup the indicator produces.
Price tests the Pre-Market high or low after the open and a volume touch marker prints. The most frequent setup of the four.
Price breaks into a thin part of the profile where almost no volume traded. There's nothing there to slow it down.
An Apex level fails. Four or more participant groups just got proven wrong at the same price, and the resulting move is usually larger than average.
The indicator works on any volume-rich market — stocks, futures, forex or crypto. The requirement isn't the asset class, it's whether the instrument reports genuine traded volume through all four sessions.
| Instrument | Suitability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NQ / ES | Excellent | Nearly 24-hour volume. All four sessions build full profiles. The reference case. |
| QQQ / SPY | Excellent | Deep volume, clean pre-market. Requires extended hours enabled. |
| SPX | Good | Index volume is derived from SPY and ES and aggregated with a proprietary script. |
| Liquid Single Names | Good | Large caps with real pre-market activity. Asia and London profiles will be thin or empty. |
| Major Forex | Good | True 24-hour participation, so all four sessions populate. Volume is tick volume, not exchange volume. |
| Major Crypto | Good | 24/7 markets. Sessions still map to institutional working hours and remain meaningful. |
| Thin Small Caps | Poor | Not enough volume to build reliable profiles. Signals will be unreliable. |
| Timeframe | Use Case |
|---|---|
| 3 min | Scalping and precise entries. Consider turning off previous-week levels to reduce clutter. |
| 5 min | Primary execution timeframe for most traders. |
| 15 min | Best all-round view. Start here. All four sessions readable at once. |
| 30 min — 1 hr | Structural context and multi-day swing planning. |
| 4 hr | Upper limit. Session structure still meaningful, but signals are infrequent. |
| Daily + | Not supported. No intraday session structure exists at this scale. |
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| All four sessions | On | Full participation picture; futures trade around the clock. |
| Value Area — Asia | Off | Reduces clutter at this speed. Keep Asia's POC and range lines. |
| Previous Week Levels | Off | Usually off screen on a 3-minute chart. |
| Minimum Signal Strength | Build | Trace fires too often to be actionable at scalping speed. |
| Guidance Lines | On | Non-negotiable — this is your stop placement. |
| Profile Opacity | Low–Medium | Keep candles fully readable. |
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| All four sessions | On | The default view. Everything readable at this timeframe. |
| Value Areas | All On | 15-minute has the screen space to carry all four. |
| Previous Day + Week | On | Both in play at this timeframe. |
| Minimum Signal Strength | Trace | You want to see everything building through the session. |
| Node Coloring | On | Buyer/seller distinction is where the read lives. |
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Regular Hours + Pre-Market | On | The two sessions that matter at this scale. |
| Asia / London | Optional | Useful context, but they compress heavily on higher timeframes. |
| Previous Week Levels | On | Primary structural reference for swing work. |
| Minimum Signal Strength | Convergence | Only the strongest reads are worth acting on at swing scale. |
This indicator runs standalone with its own built-in signal. But if you own the rest of the suite, each tool answers a different question — and the highest-conviction trades are the ones where several agree.
| Tool | Question It Answers |
|---|---|
| Market Map Pro | Where are the levels? LIS, Magnets, Variance Zones, Regime Line. |
| Volume Profile w/Pre-Market | Which of those levels still has volume behind it — and is it being tested right now? |
| VWAP ATR+ | Does the move have room left, or is it exhausted? |
| VPAX | Is size being absorbed at this exact price right now? |
Market Map: levelbeast.com/howto/level-beast-pro
VWAP ATR+: levelbeast.com/howto/multi-anchor-vwap
Trace means one reference is in play. It is explicitly not a trade — it's a place to start watching. Traders who take every Trace overtrade and blame the indicator.
Apex doesn't mean "it will hold." It means a lot of participants agree this price matters. They can be wrong together — and that break is Setup 4.
Three of your four profiles come from outside regular trading hours. Without extended hours enabled you've bought a four-session tool and are using one session.
The line marks exactly where the reason for the trade stops existing. Placing a stop somewhere else means you're risking money on a thesis you've already abandoned.
A signal at a level you identified pre-market is a trade. The same signal at a level you'd never looked at is a distraction wearing a trade's clothing.
Every element on at once on a 3-minute chart is unreadable. Configure for your timeframe — Section 12 has the three configurations worth starting from.
Signals appear as price trades into a level and are locked at the candle's close. What you see after the close is what happened.
Either extended hours is off, or you're on an instrument with no meaningful Asian-session volume. On a US single-stock chart, an empty Asia profile is expected and not a fault.
Yes, and it's the recommended pairing. Market Map draws the levels; this shows which of them still have volume behind them. Turn down profile opacity so both stay readable.
Rarely, by design. It requires four or more independent references agreeing at one price. If Apex fired daily it wouldn't mean anything.
The profiles are built from the same session data, but at lower timeframes there's less screen space and elements compress. Use the Section 12 configurations rather than fighting the default.
No. It runs standalone with its own signal engine. For superior confluence, the full Level Beast system is recommended.
Check three things in order: is your access confirmed by email, is your timeframe between 3-minute and 4-hour, and is extended trading hours enabled. If all three check out, contact levelbeast.com/support.
Every setting and its out-of-the-box value. If your chart ever stops looking right, compare against this table before changing anything else.
| Setting | Group | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Show Asia Session | Session Display | On |
| Show London Session | Session Display | On |
| Show Pre-Market Session | Session Display | On |
| Show Regular Hours Session | Session Display | On |
| Show Point of Control | Profile Display | On |
| Show Value Area | Profile Display | On |
| Buyer / Seller Node Coloring | Profile Display | On |
| Show Session Range Lines | Profile Display | On |
| Enable Signal Engine | Signal Engine | On |
| Minimum Signal Strength | Signal Engine | Trace |
| Show Guidance Lines | Signal Engine | On |
| Show Volume Touch Markers | Signal Engine | On |
| Show Previous Day Levels | Prior Levels | On |
| Show Previous Week Levels | Prior Levels | On |
| Profile Opacity | Appearance | Medium |
| Label Size | Appearance | Small |
Volume Profile w/Pre-Market shows you where volume built and which levels still have orders behind them. VPAX shows you whether size is being absorbed at that exact price, right now. They were designed to run together — one finds the level, the other tells you what's happening when price arrives.
On the checkout page, select the $997 Yearly Bundle option — Volume Profile w/PCC + VPAX with Master Class Access.
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