I’ve just received a lot of questions about what POI is and how to apply it in trading, so I decided to share some of my experiences.

POI is short for Point of Interest — a specific area on the chart where the price often returns and interacts strongly. It’s not a complicated concept; it simply refers to zones where big volatility has happened before, and market makers often come back to revisit.

The great thing about POI is that it works like a price magnet. You’ll see the price keep returning to those areas to break out, recover, or accumulate. The question “what is POI” is really asking how to recognize these points. Usually, POI is formed from giant candles with long wicks, liquidity gaps, or clear price-rejection orders (like a hammer candle).

I often come across different types of POI. There are explosive candles with large volume — that’s a sign that real capital is coming in. There are also rejection candles with long wicks, signaling competition between buyers and sellers. And there are supply-and-demand areas where many orders have already been accumulated, which will definitely attract the price back.

In practice, once you understand what POI is, entering trades becomes easier. Instead of entering blindly, you wait for the price to retrace back to the POI, check whether there are reversal signals (reversal candles, break of structure), and then decide. Your stop-loss should be placed about 10-15 points below or above the POI, depending on your trade direction.

Let’s take XRP as an example. On the 15-minute timeframe, you see a giant candle pushing the price from 1.9500 to 2.0000 within one minute. The area of 1.9500-1.9600 becomes a clear POI — the starting point of the move. When the price returns to this area after a few hours and a hammer candle appears at 1.9550, that’s a sign traders are paying attention. At that point, you can anticipate that the price may try to recover up to 2.0000, with the risk set below 1.9450.

Combining POI with other tools will be even more powerful. Check the market structure to see whether the trend is up or down — POI should serve the trend, not go against it. If the POI is above the 50 EMA or 200 EMA, it acts as support. Large trading volume during the recovery from the POI is also an extremely important confirmation.

Many people make mistakes because they don’t fully understand what POI is and enter trades too early, before any confirmation. Or they ignore the overall trend and enter just because they see a POI. Poor risk management is also a major issue. Also, use POI on the right timeframes — I prefer 15 minutes for scalping or 4 hours for swing trading.

What’s wonderful about POI is that it’s simple but effective. Once you understand what POI is and how to use it, you’ll find the market makes far more sense. Not everything is random — price moves follow meaningful points, and POI are exactly those points. Start with the 15-minute timeframe, find clear POIs, and then practice identifying reversal signals. Patience and discipline are the keys.