Market Profile basics for NQ: initial balance, poor highs and single prints

By the Mercury Flow team · 15 October 2026 · 7 min read

Market Profile shows time at price instead of volume. It's one of the clearest ways to see where the market accepted value and where it moved too fast. Here are the pieces NQ traders use most, and what 16 years of data says about them.

How a profile is built

The session is split into 30-minute periods (A, B, C…). Every price a period trades at gets one letter, called a TPO. Stack the letters sideways and you get the profile's shape: wide where the market spent time, thin where it moved quickly.

Initial balance (IB)

The initial balance is the range of the first hour (the first two periods) of the New York session. Its high and low are watched as the day's first reference levels. A move beyond them is called a range extension.

What our data says: on 16 years of ES, simply buying or selling the first break of the IB had no edge at 60 minutes, and 42% of sessions closed back inside the IB. Use the IB as a reference, not a signal.

Poor highs and poor lows

A healthy session high usually has a tail: a few single TPOs at the top where buyers were rejected. A poor high has no tail. Two or more periods traded at the very top, a sign the auction ended without a clear rejection, often called an "unfinished auction".

What our data says: this is one idea that partly held up. Poor highs were exceeded by the next New York session 59.7% of the time, against 53.1% for highs with a selling tail. Much of that is explained by where the session closed, so we use poor highs and lows as targets ("the next liquidity"), not as entries.

Single prints

Single prints are runs of single TPOs inside the profile: prices the market moved through in one period without going back. They mark fast, one-directional moves. When price returns to them later, traders watch whether they act as support or resistance.

Profile shapes: P, b, D and B

• P-shape: a fast rise, then balance at the top. Often short covering.
• b-shape: a fast fall, then balance at the bottom. Often long liquidation.
• D-shape: balance, with the busiest price (point of control) in the middle.
• B-shape: two balance areas separated by single prints. A trend day in two steps.

Shapes describe what happened today. On our 16-year test, the shape alone didn't predict the next session's direction. They're context for where value is, not a forecast.

Putting it together

A practical way to use Market Profile on NQ: mark the IB, note poor highs or lows as targets, keep single prints as potential reaction zones, and read the shape to know whether the market is balancing or trending. Mercury Flow draws the New York profile, IB, poor highs and lows, tails and single prints automatically on DeepCharts.

Statistics quoted are from our own historical research on ES futures and don't guarantee future results. Futures trading involves substantial risk.