Bar Chart
Quick Answer
A bar chart is a price chart that represents market activity using individual bars, with each bar typically showing the open, high, low and close for a specific period. Also called an OHLC chart, it allows traders to see the price range and how the market moved between the beginning and end of each interval.
How does a Bar Chart work?
Each price bar represents a defined period or unit of market activity.
For a standard OHLC bar:
the top of the vertical line shows the period's high;
the bottom of the vertical line shows the period's low;
a short horizontal mark on the left shows the opening price;
a short horizontal mark on the right shows the closing price.
CME describes bar charts as displaying the open, high, low and close for each period, with the opening price shown on the left of the vertical bar and the closing price on the right.
The period represented by each bar depends on the chart settings. For example, traders may view 1-minute, 5-minute, hourly, daily, weekly or other intervals. Some charting systems can also create bars based on trading activity rather than elapsed time.
Key features of a Bar Chart
Several characteristics make bar charts useful for price analysis:
Four price points: A standard OHLC bar displays open, high, low and close prices.
Price range: The vertical line immediately shows how far the market traded between its highest and lowest price during the period.
Opening and closing position: The side marks make it possible to compare where the market opened with where it closed.
Multiple timeframes: Each bar can represent anything from a short intraday interval to a daily, weekly or longer period.
Compact presentation: Bar charts display substantial price information without the wider bodies used in candlestick charts.
Historical comparison: A sequence of bars makes it possible to examine changes in ranges, highs, lows and closing behaviour over time.
MetaTrader 5 supports bar charts as one of its standard chart-display formats and can also display the exact Open, High, Low and Close values of the latest bar.
Simple Bar Chart example
Suppose one hourly bar contains the following prices:
Open: $100
High: $106
Low: $98
Close: $104
The vertical bar extends from:
$98 to $106
The small mark on the left appears at:
$100
The small mark on the right appears at:
$104
Because the closing price is higher than the opening price, the market gained:
$104 − $100 = $4
during that period from open to close.
The total high-to-low range was:
$106 − $98 = $8
The bar therefore communicates both the full trading range and the relationship between the opening and closing prices.
This example is illustrative only and does not represent actual FxGrow pricing or market data.
Potential benefits and uses
Bar charts can help traders study historical price behaviour while retaining more information than a basic line chart.
They may be used to:
identify historical highs and lows;
examine opening and closing behaviour;
observe expanding or contracting trading ranges;
identify trends or periods of consolidation;
analyse support and resistance areas;
apply technical indicators and chart analysis;
compare price behaviour across different timeframes.
CME notes that bar, candlestick and line charts can all help traders examine trends, reversals and consolidation, although each presents market data differently.
Risks, limitations and common misconceptions
A common misconception is that a bar chart in trading means the same thing as a conventional statistical bar chart used to compare categories.
In financial charting, the term usually refers to a sequence of OHLC price bars, not rectangular columns comparing values.
Another misconception is that bar charts contain different underlying price information from candlestick charts. Standard OHLC bar charts and candlestick charts generally use the same four price points—open, high, low and close—but display them differently.
A line chart is different because it commonly connects one selected value, usually closing prices, and therefore does not show the full high-low range or opening price for each period.
Finally, chart patterns are interpretations rather than guarantees. Historical bar formations may provide analytical context, but they cannot reliably determine how a market must move next.