Change over time
High-low-close chart (HLC)
Shows each period's high, low and closing value.
- Chart
- Price movement
- Trend over time
What it answers
Where did the period close within its range?
- Shape
- Range stems with closing ticks
- What it shows
- Range and close position.
Example
The question
What range did the share price trade in each day, and where did it close?
Daily share price, March (high-low-close)
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Period data without an opening value.
Avoid it when
When readers need open-to-close direction.
How to read it
Read the high-low line and closing tick.
The data you need
- Layout
- Wide OHLC table
- Fields
- Time: date/datetime; High,Low,Close: numbers
- One row is
- One complete trading or measurement period. What is the grain?
- Rules
- Require Low <= Close <= High. Use one row per period.
- Optional
- Optional Volume. Define trading calendar and adjusted versus unadjusted prices.
- Preparation
- Aggregate genuine observations into ordered periods using open/close order and period high/low; align volume and adjusted-price conventions.
- Units
- Price uses currency per instrument/unit; volume uses traded units. Define period length; price changes and returns have different units.
Worked example
High 110, low 95, close 105. The close lies 10 above the low and 5 below the high.
| Time | High | Low | Close |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-01-01 | 110 | 95 | 105 |
| 2026-01-02 | 112 | 101 | 108 |