If you're new to Market Profile then you'd expect a Normal Day to be the most common day type that you get. In fact it's the rarest day type that you see. A normal day is when we spend the day inside the IB.

Today was almost a normal day but the last 20 or so minutes we made a new high and broke out of the IB that we'd been stuck in all day. Here is the MP graphic followed by a combo chart/MP graphic image. The final developing value area which will become tomorrow's value area is in green and the point of control blue.

[1287.50] R
[1287.25] R
[1287.00] R
[1286.75] QR
[1286.50] EFQR
[1286.25] EFGQR
[1286.00] EFGHJPQR
[1285.75] EFGHJPQR
[1285.50] EFGHJNPQR
[1285.25] EFGHJNPQR
[1285.00] EFGHIJNPQR
[1284.75] EFGHIJKNPQ
[1284.50] EFGHIJKMNPQ
[1284.25] EFGHIJKMNPQ
[1284.00] EFGHIJKMNPQ
[1283.75] EFGHIJKMNP
[1283.50] EFGHIJKMNP
[1283.25] DEFGHIKLMNP
[1283.00] DEGHIKLMNP
[1282.75] DEGHIKLMNP
[1282.50] DEGHIKLMN
[1282.25] DEGHIKLMN
[1282.00] DEGHKLMN
[1281.75] DEGHKLM
[1281.50] DEGL
[1281.25] DEL
[1281.00] EL
[1280.75] EL
[1280.50] EL
[1280.25] EL

Herewith a brief extract from My Market Profile Course:
NORMAL DAYS:
On Normal Days, Other Time Frame buyers & sellers are PATIENTLY responding to market created opportunities on OPPOSITE extremes.
(A normal day occurs where the pioneer range or INITIAL BALANCE (IB) is the 1st Or the 1st & 2nd column in the profile graphic…See example on Page 23.)

Identifying the Other Time Frame buyer & seller’s activity on normal days shows you how they are trading in the day time frame. They are at their low end of anxiety scale then and their activity usually represents 10% of the day’s total trade – NOT ENOUGH TO UPSET THE IB. They are NOT extending the range as set by the Day Time Frame trader, Therefore, the Day Time Frame trader remains in control of the session.

On Normal Days:
Other Time Frame traders enter the market on the extremes of the price range by competing with Day Time Frame traders for opportunities at that level.

They also enter the market in the Value Area (VA) responding to a market created opportunity or to another cause of time frame change.

As discussed on Page 12, the Other Time Frame trader’s activity in the VA establishes a price level that is slightly too high or too low. This forces the market to go high enough or low enough to SHUT OFF activity in order to MAINTAIN BALANCE.
The result is an imbalance above or below the “High Price / Time Price”. This is the price that traded in the most time brackets and referred to as the Point of Control (POC).
It is the fairest price in the VA. (If more than one price traded in the same number of time periods, use the price nearest to the midpoint of the entire range) –
(I personally use the TPO highest count NEAREST the open and observation over the years has shown this to be more correct than using the midpoint) .....................
............
R s to reflect your chart are not counted as TPOs because they reflect closing range...........
THE ABOVE IS TAKEN FROM A DOCUMENT THAT I PUT TOGETHER BASED OFF AN ORIGINAL COURSE RUN BY PETE STEIDLMAYER THAT IS MEANT TO RUN WITH THE CBOT HANDBOOK

and just for the rcord in case anyone wants confirmation then I quote Chapter 2 Page 16 of Dalton's Mind over Markets:
M period (your equivalent of R) denotes the CLOSING RANGE. which is the markets last indication of overall sentiment for the day. It is used as a reference point against the following days open to see if the underlying market sentiment has change.

Are you saying that the R bracket should not be used in the calculation of the subsequent day's Value Areas and Point of Control? i.e. only data collected from 09:30 to 16:00 (and not 16:15) EST is used (or should be used) for trading off the following day?

the last time period is an untested time frame....a bit like the last spin of the wheel before the casino closes you don t know if it is followed by another black or it changes to red.

you see you forget something maybe. Sometimes people are FORCED into trading NOW regardless of value and the closing range is just one of those times. PS even with the advent of 24 hour trading nothing will ever change . the reason is the mark to market for margining purposes.

So what you are essentially saying is that the last 15 minutes in this particular market is a false market of participants doing something which they probably wouldn't otherwise do if the market had (say) another hour's worth of trading ahead of it?

Given that information, we shouldn't take any heed of this time segment in calculating value.

Do you include the R bracket data in your Value Area for the following day? i.e. When you do MP based trades tomorrow in the ES will the Value lines that you trade off incorporate the R bracket from today?

yes