Free, permanently · no feature gate
POC candle indicator for NinjaTrader 8
In short: DC POC Candle draws one horizontal line inside every candle, at the price where the most contracts traded in that bar. The candle stays a normal candle. It works on any bar type, needs no Order Flow+ licence, and costs nothing.
Opens the portal: free account, then the file and your licence key. No card.
NinjaTrader 8 · Windows · 3 machines · Tick Replay needed only for historical bars
8- One line inside every bar Each bar carries one gold mark at the price where the most contracts traded in that bar: in the 13:35 bar, 263 contracts at 30843.25, more than at any other price. The candle itself is NinjaTrader's and stays as it was.
- An hour untouched The 11:55 bar's POC, 30557.75, sat below every trade of the next twelve bars, so with 'Highlight untouched POCs' on it stayed blue while the 12:00 to 12:55 bars printed. The 13:00 bar traded back down to it, and the mark turned gold again.
- Where price came back The 13:00 bar dipped to 30555.75, two points under that POC, and closed at 30595.25. By the 13:50 close price had traded as high as 30883.50.
- Still untouched at 13:50 Blue marks are POCs no later trade has reached yet; the newest bar is never flagged. When price trades back to one, it turns gold again on the next repaint.
- Built from every trade The POC is counted from trade prints alone, recalculated on every trade, with no Order Flow+ needed; a tie goes to the price that traded first in the bar. Historical bars need Tick Replay; bars as they form need nothing extra.
On recorded sessions
DC POC Candle on recorded NQ sessions
Moments from recorded NQ 12-26 trades, drawn by DC POC Candle's own rules in a NinjaTrader 8 chart window. Click a picture to see it full size.
Re-drawn from recorded NQ 12-26 trades on selected sessions — illustrations, not trading results.
What is a POC candle?
The point of control of a single candle is the price at which the most volume traded inside that bar. A POC candle indicator draws that price as a short horizontal line within the candle, so you can see where the auction actually spent its size rather than only where the bar opened and closed. The candle itself is unchanged — it does not become a footprint.
Why the POC of a single bar matters
A candle tells you four prices: open, high, low and close. None of them is where the trading happened. A bar can close at its high while almost all of its volume traded near the low — and traders read those two very differently.
Where is the bar’s centre of gravity?
Volume near the low of an up-bar is often read as a move built on a base; volume near the high, as one that was chased. Same candle, opposite implication.
Is the POC migrating?
A run of bars whose POCs step steadily in one direction is a very different market from a run whose POCs sit at the same price.
Acceptance or rejection?
Many traders read POCs that cluster at one price as acceptance, and a POC far from the bar’s close as rejection.
Key facts
| Platform | NinjaTrader 8, Windows |
|---|---|
| Order Flow+ required | No — it builds its own volume-at-price map from the tick stream |
| Tick Replay | Only for historical bars. Real time works with no special setup. |
| Bar types | Any — minute, tick, second, volume, range, Renko |
| What it draws | One line per candle, plus a licence line you can hide |
| Settings | Style, colour, thickness, width, opacity, price label, highlight colours, filters; save as default for every chart |
| Price | Free, permanently — no trial period, no locked settings |
| Licence | Free licence key, 3 machines |
Works on any bar type
Minute, tick, second, volume, range, Renko — all of them. The indicator accumulates volume at each price inside the bar as it forms, so it never depends on a particular chart construction.
The POC button on the chart toolbar
A POC button appears on the chart toolbar, and one click opens its quick settings. You can adjust the indicator from the chart itself, without removing it and re-adding it afterwards.
How do I see the lines on older bars?
Switch on Tick Replay. In real time the indicator works from the moment you add it; for bars that closed before you loaded it, NinjaTrader replays the ticks, so the indicator can read where volume traded inside each of them.
Every line is built from real trades, never an estimate. Turn Tick Replay on, reload historical data, and the lines appear on history too.
Enabling it takes three steps. In the Control Center open Tools › Options › Market Data and tick Show Tick Replay. Then right-click the chart, open Data Series, and set Tick Replay to True. Finally right-click the chart and choose Reload All Historical Data — that third step is the one that brings the history in.
POC candle vs VPOC vs naked POC
These three terms get mixed up constantly. They are not the same thing, and the difference is only about which period is being profiled.
| Term | What it means | Period |
|---|---|---|
| POC candle | The price with the most volume inside one bar | One bar |
| VPOC / session POC | The price with the most volume in a whole session or profile | A session or day |
| Naked POC | A session POC that price has never traded back to since it formed | Historical, untested |
DC POC Candle draws the first, and can colour a bar’s POC blue until price trades back to it (Highlight untouched POCs, off by default). The other two are drawn by our levels and volume profile tools, including naked-level detection.
How to install it
Create your free account in the portal and download the file with your licence key.
In NinjaTrader: Tools › Import › NinjaScript Add-On and select the file.
Right-click a chart, choose Indicators, find DCPocCandle, click Add. Until the licence is bound, the chart shows a note with the Machine ID: press POC, then Copy beside Machine ID, paste it in the portal under “Add a computer” and restart NinjaTrader.
For lines on older bars, switch Tick Replay on and reload the data.
Get DC POC Candle
One button. Create your free account in the portal and the file and your licence key are there straight away.
No card, no trial clock, no expiry. The licence is free permanently — that is a promise, not a setting.
What this is the free version of
DC POC Candle draws one line: the price where the most contracts traded in a bar. DC OrderFlow Chart draws the whole footprint — Bid × Ask at every price inside each bar, with imbalance zones and big trades on top — and when you zoom out, the same kind of POC line on its own candles.
They are the same idea at two depths. Start with the free line, and when you want to know not just where the volume concentrated but how it was distributed and who was aggressive, DC OrderFlow Chart opens the whole bar.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free?
Yes. No trial period, no locked settings. A small grey licence line sits top left; set Licence line to Hidden to remove it. It is free because it is how most people first meet DC TradeLab, and because it is cheap for us to support.
Do I need Order Flow+ for this?
No. This indicator builds its own volume-at-price map from the tick stream, so a standard NinjaTrader data connection is enough.
Does it slow the chart down?
It is built to stay light: it keeps a volume map per bar for the most recent 5,000 bars, so its memory use stays bounded.
Can I change the line colour and width?
Yes — colour, thickness, width, opacity, style (Line, Box or Dot) and a price label are all settable, and you can save your preference as the default for every chart.
Does it work on Renko bars?
Yes. Volume is accumulated price by price inside whatever bar is currently forming, so the bar construction does not matter.
What happens to my email address?
It is the address your portal account and your free licence key are tied to. Any marketing email is a separate, optional consent — decline it and you receive the download and nothing further.