Apparently I don't know what you're going for here as VAP provides info on interest in a range over time. But you know that.
1. Two legged relatively quick move off the open. 2. Congestion at the lows 3 & 4. Momentum entry zones on price breaking small Range 5. Congestion Range at same level There are days when once price makes an early strong move to a particular level, everything just stops. Trading activity falls off as if everyone is just done for the day. Instead of falling on a trampoline, it feels like price has moved into a swamp and everything has become soft and damp. At (2), price is congesting immediately after making a sharp low. This is very different than Reversals in which everything is sharp. The initial pullback as well as the retest. Reversals off this kind of action are high quality. And while congestion does often occur before the eventual Reversal, it is more often occurring well above the Highs/Lows, unlike this example where congestion starts at the low itself. This kind of overlapping congestion also occurs in instances before the move to a new level is made. But these instances normally have energy in them, such that it is worthwhile to play a break. I recognize that there are visual markers for this kind of activity. I was hoping to quantify this activity in some way so that I may begin assessing the influence it exerts on subsequent activity. It may alert me to decrease size and rely on anticipatory orders instead of pressing for momentum to carry the trade.
You appear to be ignoring your ranges. After the OR is established at 06 down to 88, price comes back halfway and stalls. There's your first short. Then price drops to 81, providing a midpoint of 94. Price stalls at 95 and there's your second short. You then range until the middle of the afternoon. Whether you play that or not depends on whether or not you trade ranges. You could just stop at noon when these shorts are done and enjoy yourself. As for the why of all this, it has to do with the underlying. All that tumult at the open is a result of at least the ten most-heavily weighted issues. As these are different from the same set in the S&P, the behaviors at the open will differ between them. If they traded 24/5 like futures, none of that would occur.
The reason I used this example wasn't so much about inquiring where to go long or short. I was trying to use it to illustrate the nature of the congestion and what it may be saying about the kind of trading to come. Perhaps I can phrase it better this time. There is a Range between 88 and 80. There are 2 broad categories to define this Range. 1. Range created from the outset 2. Range created as a consolidation after a trend move The action within this Range can then be further divided into 2 more categories. A. Range with overlapping action B. Range with clean swings between the limits This example could be described as 2A. By studying the way in which price gets to congestion and it's behavior within the congestion, I am trying to assess the amount of oomph in the system (regardless of direction) and quantify it. Not because I need a quantity to make a decision, but so that I can make my contextualization richer, particularly on a tactical level.
Well, again, what you get depends on what's happening with the underlying. That doesn't mean analyzing all ten of the underlying. But it does explain why the seeming chaos of the open occurs and why it isn't the same every day. For that you'll have to provide context, i.e., the hourly chart. Once you've found the important levels and focus on those, the mystery dissolves. As for "oomph", that depends on the volume. If you want real oomph, focus on hinges, what I called "ranges on steroids" in the appendix on hinges. They are a classic example of compression and expansion, IF the volume is right. Can it all be quantified? Probably not. But it's awfully easy to see.
Why do you say it cannot be quantified? Isn't context simply an aggregation of individual probabilities? For example, consider a situation where a compression is occurring at the Open, and price is at a major level on the daily, having got to that level through a very strong trend move from the previous day such that it is now oversold with respect to the mean of the TC. There are 3 pieces of information here and each has it's base probability. Added up together, it makes up the context. It says a lot about the likely oomph in the system regardless of where price eventually heads. This would influence tactical decisions. Similarly, why cannot volume information (volume inside a Range as well as relative volume of the range compared to the swing preceding it) act as one more piece of quantifiable information to make the context richer?
I didn't say it couldn't be quantified; I said it probably could not. People have after all been trying for decades to quantify it and have yet to be able to do so. In the meantime . . .
I meant quantification not as a means to avoid decision making in the face of uncertainty, but rather as an objective way to continually be aware of the changing degree of one's subjective belief regarding that uncertainty - where at any given time, the totality of one's belief (formed through observation, backtesting) is represented as a metric. And where the market characterizing process is seamlessly integrated with the daily context assessment and all tactical decisions. Where everything is flowing as one river. Studying Wyckoff and your work has been very helpful in forming this outlook.
I don't know that quantifying subjectivity is possible, or desirable. Regarding your example, it's enough to note that the ON was 07. The OR reached 6.5 (the last swing high was on the 4th, at 3.5). Therefore, there are two choices: short a failure or buy a breakout. Shorting the failure meant 25pts in a half hour. Subjectivity is not a factor. There are plenty, of course, who see no point in reviewing daily and hourly charts, but these are generally those who have no idea what to do once the opening bell has rung and are "aghast" at what price does. You are not one of these people.