Candle Close

Also called Closing price, Bar close, Candle closing price, Close price

A candle close is the last price a candlestick records before its time period ends, such as the final price at the end of a 1-hour candle. Once it prints, it is fixed and no longer changes.

Until its period ends, a candle is still forming and can change shape completely. If you wait for the close, you act only on a move that held until the period ended, not on a breakout that may disappear ten minutes later.

What the close tells you that the live price does not

Every candle has four prices: open, high, low and close. The body is the thick part between the open and the close. The wicks are the thin lines above and below the body; they reach to the high and the low and show how far price moved. The candle close is where price stood when the period ran out, so a wick that pokes through a level and falls back leaves the close on the near side of it.

The timeframe decides when the close happens. A 1-hour candle closes every hour and a daily candle closes once a day. The same move can show up as a failed spike on the 1-hour chart and barely show on the daily. The picture below shows the same spike on both charts.

The same move on a 1-hour chart and on a daily chart

Illustrative shapes. A failed spike that fills a whole candle on the 1-hour chart is only a small part of one daily candle. The daily chart uses a compressed price scale.

Trading a breakout on the close: a worked example

All figures in this example are illustrative, and the spread is ignored to keep the maths simple. The chart is a 1-hour EUR/USD chart with resistance at 1.1000. A pip is the smallest standard price step, 0.0001 on EUR/USD. A lot is a unit of trade size; 1 standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency, so on EUR/USD one pip is worth $10. The trade size here is 1 standard lot.

One candle pushes up to 1.1015. A trader buys on the touch at 1.1005, sure it is a breakout. But that candle closes at 1.0990, back below resistance. A stop-loss is an order that closes a losing trade at a set price. The first trader's stop is at 1.0985. The next candle drops to 1.0970 and hits it.

A second trader waits. Five candles later, one closes at 1.1012, above the level. They buy there and put their stop at that candle's low, 1.0990. Two candles later price closes at 1.1032, 20 pips above their entry, though the trade could still have failed. The chart below shows both candles.

Wick above resistance that closes below, then a candle that closes aboveIllustration

Here is the arithmetic for both trades:

Buying on the touch vs buying on the close, 1 standard lot

Touch-buy loss in pips(1.1005 − 1.0985) × 10,000= 20 pips

Touch-buy loss in money20 × $10= $200

Close-buy extra entry cost(1.1012 − 1.1005) × 10,000= 7 pips

Close-buy risk in pips(1.1012 − 1.0990) × 10,000= 22 pips

Close-buy risk in money22 × $10= $220

Close-buy open profit in pips(1.1032 − 1.1012) × 10,000= 20 pips

Touch trade vs close tradeTouch: −$200, stopped out. Close

The trader who waited paid more to get in (1.1012 against 1.1005) and used a slightly wider stop. In return, they avoided the false break entirely. That is the trade-off with close-based entries: you give up some price to get more confirmation.

When each candle closes

Each candle closes at the end of its own period: a 1-hour candle at the end of its hour, a daily candle at the end of its day. For 4-hour and daily candles, your broker's server clock decides where that period starts and ends. Two brokers on different clocks can therefore show different daily candles for the same market, and a close on one chart may not exist on the other.

If your plan uses daily closes, check which clock your chart uses before you compare signals.

Where the candle close shows up on your chart

Most trading platforms can show a countdown of the time left on the current candle. When it reaches zero, the close is fixed and a new candle opens.
Price alerts often let you choose between firing on any touch and firing only once the candle closes. The close option fires later and less often, but it does not fire on a spike that reverses before the candle ends. The chart below zooms into the false-break candle from the example: a touch alert fires at 1.1000, a close alert never does.
Some indicator signals can appear and then vanish while the candle is still forming, so read them after the close.

Inside the false-break candle: a touch alert fires, a close alert stays silentIllustration

Illustrative path inside the 1-hour candle from the worked example. It opens at 1.0988, dips to its low of 1.0986, touches 1.1000 and reaches 1.1015, but the candle closes at 1.0990, so an alert set to fire on the close never goes off.

Checks before you act on a candle close

If the close is beyond the level, check by how much. A close one pip past resistance tells you less than a close well clear of it. Decide your minimum in your plan before the session. An illustrative rule: the close must sit beyond the level by at least half the range of a typical recent candle on that timeframe. In the worked example, recent 1-hour candles ranged about 20 pips, so the minimum would be about 10 pips, and the 1.1012 close, 12 pips above 1.1000, passes.
Give the higher timeframe priority. A 15-minute close above resistance counts for little if the last 4-hour candle closed below it. Wait for the 4-hour candle to close above the level too.
Measure your stop from the closed candle. For a buy, put the stop at or below the low of the candle that confirmed the move. Work out your lot size from that distance before you enter.

FAQ

Is the candle close based on the bid or the ask price?

Most charts build candles from the bid price, so the close is the last bid of the period. Buy orders fill at the ask, which is higher by the spread. That means a buy you place right at the close can fill slightly above the price you see.

What happens to the close over the weekend?

Friday's last close stays on the chart until the market reopens. If news breaks while the market is shut, the first new candle can open far from that close, and your stop then fills at the first price available, which can be well past the level you set.

Should I move my stop only after a candle closes?

Many traders trail their stop only after a candle closes, so a brief wick does not drag it around. The stop itself still triggers on the live price, not on the close.