What is Open-High-Low-Close (OHLC)?
Crypto Glossary Definition
For any given period of time, the price of an asset is commonly expressed using these four metrics. The open is the price at the beginning of a given time window. The high is the max value within that window. The low is the minimum value, and the close is the value at the end of the window. This data is conveyed within each candle of a candlestick chart.
Why Open-High-Low-Close (OHLC) Matters
Every candle on a candlestick chart is a visual encoding of that period's OHLC data — the candle's "body" spans the open and close, and its "wicks" show the high and low reached during the period. Reading OHLC data directly (rather than just glancing at the candle) is the basis for most technical analysis patterns.
Open-High-Low-Close (OHLC) in Practice
When an analyst pulls up a daily candlestick chart for Bitcoin to study a recent price swing, each individual candle is really just a compact visualization of that day's OHLC data. Say Bitcoin opened the trading day at $61,000, climbed as high as $63,500 during a mid-day rally, dipped down to $60,200 during an afternoon sell-off, and finally closed the day at $62,800. Those four numbers become one candle: the body spans the distance between the $61,000 open and $62,800 close, shaded green because the close was higher than the open, while thin wicks extend upward to $63,500 and downward to $60,200 to mark the day's extremes. A trader scanning several days of candles this way can quickly spot patterns without reading raw numbers — a series of candles with long upper wicks and small bodies, for instance, might suggest that rallies keep getting sold into before the close. Trading platforms also let users export the underlying OHLC values directly into a spreadsheet or algorithmic trading script, since most technical indicators, such as moving averages or RSI, are calculated from the raw open, high, low, and close numbers rather than from the visual candle itself.
Still have questions about Open-High-Low-Close (OHLC)?
Ask ARIA, our free AI crypto intelligence agent, for a deeper explanation.
Ask ARIA →