APEX ICE Volume Levels
The Apex ICE volume levels are similar in concept to something in trading called Volume Profiles. But the Apex version is far superior to any version of volume profile I’ve seen, in fact, John Skelton called ICE like volume profile on steroids. But you only need to understand a couple of basic ideas to see how important they can be for us. This is all covered in various Forum posts and videos, but I’ll summarize here.
You start with yesterday’s trades, all of them. Say in NQ the total volume yesterday was 100,000 contracts. Then you sort them by price level. You can see this visually with the Apex ICE Histogram. Different line lengths represent different total volumes at each price point traded yesterday. Ok easy enough. Now do some math and identify the trades that represent 70% of yesterday total volume, in our case about 70,000 contracts. This collection of 70% of the total volume is called the “Value Area”.
There are 3 lines that are key to understanding ICE. The Green ICE is the highest price in the value area. The Red ICE is the lowest price in the value area. Think of those 2 lines as setting our boundaries for an area that contains 70% of yesterday’s volume. An area the market thinks is pretty important. That’s why it usually takes Exceeding Volume to break thru a Green or Red ICE line. Finally, the Blue ICE line is also called the “Point of Control” (a term you’ll also see in Order Prints if you’re paying attention). This is the price level that had the HIGHEST volume yesterday.
Notice how often you will see today’s Settlement (the price level that trading closed at yesterday) be pretty close to today’s Blue ICE. Hmm…not a coincidence. Put it all together and you can see why Blue ICE can act as a strong Magnet and Green/Red ICE can be strong Resistance/support lines.