# Naked POC Also known as: virgin POC. A Volume & Order Flow concept (Volume profile) in the LuxAlgo Library, with 1 indicator implementation. ## What is a Naked POC? A naked POC (also called a virgin POC, or NPOC) is a prior session's [point of control](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/point-of-control/) that price has not traded back through since that session ended. The point of control is the price where the most volume traded in a [volume profile](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/volume-profile/), or the most time in a TPO profile, so it marks the level that session treated as fairest. If later sessions move away and never return, the level is left naked: untested since the day it was built. Profile traders keep naked POCs marked because heavily traded prices retain reference value: when price finally rotates back, the first touch often draws a reaction, and open NPOCs above or below act as natural destinations when the market leaves balance. That is a tendency, not a rule; some naked POCs fill within a day or two, others sit untouched for months or never trade again. The vocabulary comes from the Market Profile tradition, where the time-based version was called a virgin POC long before volume profiling went mainstream on retail platforms. The distinction still matters: a [TPO profile](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/tpo-profile/) crowns the price where the session spent the most time, a volume profile the price where it traded the most contracts, and on rotational days the two usually agree while on stop-run days they can sit noticeably apart. Tools like benb1122's TPO Levels study track NPOCs alongside related unfinished structures, poor highs and lows and single prints, because all of them mark auction business left incomplete. The honest framing is a prioritized watchlist, not a prediction engine. An NPOC says: this price mattered enough to anchor a whole session, and the market has not re-examined it since. Recent, nearby NPOCs in the direction of travel are live candidates for targets and reactions; distant ones from another volatility regime mostly document history. Public claims about how reliably NPOCs get filled rest on anecdote and cherry-picked examples rather than audited statistics, so the level earns a plan, entries, invalidation, and a defined risk, rather than blind faith. ## How to identify a naked POC Finding NPOCs is bookkeeping over completed profiles; the discipline is in maintaining the list honestly. 1. Build the prior session's profile, volume-based or TPO-based, and mark its point of control; decide which profile type you track and stay consistent. 2. Confirm nakedness: scan every subsequent session and verify price has not traded through the level since the session that created it closed. 3. Extend the level forward on the chart with its date attached, and repeat for each completed session so open NPOCs accumulate into a dated ladder above and below price. 4. Watch the first revisit closely: responsive trade at the touch, a bounce or a fade with participation behind it, is the level doing its job. 5. Retire the level once price trades cleanly through it; it is no longer naked, and leaving spent levels on the chart buries the ones that still matter. ## How it's calculated A naked (virgin) POC is a past session's point of control that price has never traded back through since that session ended. ``` 1. For each completed session, build its volume profile: total the volume traded at each price level p across the session to get V(p). 2. Set the session's POC to the level with the largest profile volume: POC = the p that maximizes V(p). 3. Extend the POC forward in time as a horizontal level beginning at the session close. 4. On every later bar t, test for a touch: the level is touched when Lo_t <= POC <= H_t. 5. While no later bar has touched it, the POC is naked and stays on the chart. 6. After the first touch, the POC is no longer naked; mark it filled or remove it. p: price level in the profile (one row of the profile's tick or bin width) V(p): volume traded at level p during the session POC: point of control, the level with the session's maximum profile volume t: index of a bar after the POC's session H_t: high of bar t Lo_t: low of bar t ``` Also called virgin POC. TPO profiles pick the POC by TPO count instead of volume; the naked test is identical. Touch rules vary by implementation: some require a trade exactly at the level, others count any overlap with a later bar's range. ## How traders use it - As targets: when price breaks from balance, open naked POCs in the direction of travel are candidate destinations for the move. - As reaction levels: the first return to an NPOC is watched for responsive trade, a bounce or a fade; once traded through, the level is no longer naked and most traders retire it. - As a prioritized list: recent naked POCs usually get more weight than stale ones, an application of [level freshness and decay](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/level-freshness-and-decay/). - As confluence: an NPOC that overlaps a [high-volume node](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/high-low-volume-nodes/) from a longer composite, or sits at a session's [VWAP](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/session-vwap/) area, is treated as a stronger destination than a lone dated line. - For trade management: on breakout trades, the next open NPOC serves as a natural scale-out price, and on first-touch fades the level itself anchors the stop placement just beyond. ## Naked POC vs related profile concepts - **Point of Control** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/point-of-control/): Every completed profile has a POC; naked adds one condition, that price has never returned through it since. The POC describes where the session concentrated; the naked qualifier describes what the market has done about it since, which is nothing yet. - **High/Low-volume Nodes** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/high-low-volume-nodes/): Nodes are zones read from a composite profile: high-volume nodes attract and hold price, low-volume nodes get traversed quickly. An NPOC is a single dated price from one session. A naked POC sitting inside an untested high-volume node is the two ideas agreeing. - **Value Area** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/value-area/): The value area is the span holding roughly seventy percent of a session's activity, with the POC as its center of gravity. Value-area edges frame acceptance and rejection; the NPOC is the finer-grained magnet inside that framework, one exact price the auction crowned and never revisited. ## FAQ ### Do naked POCs always get revisited? No. The revisit idea rests on old high-volume prices keeping reference value, and many NPOCs do eventually trade, but plenty survive untouched for months or years, especially after strong one-directional trends. Treat a revisit as a scenario to plan around, with entries and risk defined at the level, not as a certainty. ### What is the difference between a naked POC and a regular POC? Every completed profile has a POC: its single highest-volume (or highest-time) price. Naked adds one condition: since that session closed, price has never traded back through the level. The moment a later session touches it, the POC is considered tested and loses its naked status, though some traders still note it as an old reference. ### Should naked POCs come from volume profiles or TPO profiles? Both traditions are in active use. The original virgin POC came from [TPO charts](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/tpo-profile/), where the POC is the price with the most time brackets; volume profiling crowns the price with the most traded volume. On balanced days they usually land close together; on fast directional days they can diverge. What matters is consistency: pick one profile type, track its NPOCs, and do not mix ladders. ### How long does a naked POC stay relevant? There is no expiry stamp, but relevance decays with distance, age, and regime change. A level printed last week near current price is a live reference; one from a different volatility regime two hundred points away mostly documents history. Many traders cap the list to the most recent handful per side, the same pruning logic used for other retained reference levels, so the map stays readable. ### What typically happens when price finally touches an NPOC? The expectation is responsive trade at first touch: buyers or sellers who remember the level doing business there again, producing a bounce, a fade, or at least a pause. Acceptance straight through with no reaction retires the level and says the market no longer prices it as special. Watching participation on the touch, a [volume spike](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/volume-spike/) or its absence, tells you which script is running. ### Is trading naked POC fills a proven edge? Treat the claim skeptically. The tendency for price to eventually rebalance to old high-volume prices is plausible auction logic and widely believed, but there are no rigorous public statistics on fill rates or reaction quality, and social-media examples suffer from survivorship. The defensible use is as a location framework: NPOCs supply pre-defined decision prices where risk can be placed precisely, and the edge, if any, comes from execution around them. ## Implementations in the Library - Naked POC (LuxAlgo): https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/naked-poc/ ## Related concepts - Volume Profile: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/volume-profile/ - High/low-volume Nodes: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/high-low-volume-nodes/ - Delta Profile: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/delta-profile/ - Point of Control: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/point-of-control/ - Value Area: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/value-area/ - Profile Shape Taxonomy: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/profile-shape-taxonomy/ --- Source: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/naked-poc/ (LuxAlgo Library, the encyclopedia of trading & technical analysis). Free to use with attribution: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/license/