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Chart Types & Sessions

Alpha Charts offer multiple ways to view price action, depending on how much detail you want and how you interpret market structure. Every price bar style available in MarketAlpha provides open, high, low, and close (OHLC) data — but the way this information is presented can affect how you read the chart.

Candlestick Charts​

Candlestick charts are the default style for most traders and offer an intuitive visual format. Each candle shows:

  • The body: open-to-close range
  • The wick/shadow: intraday high and low
  • Color: green for up days (close > open), red for down days (close < open)

Candles are fast to interpret and particularly helpful when identifying:

  • Reversals (e.g., doji, hammer, engulfing)
  • Momentum shifts
  • Visual patterns at support or resistance

Because of their visual clarity, candles are especially useful when scanning for chart patterns or confirming price reactions to levels.

Bar Charts​

Bar charts also display OHLC data but in a more compact and neutral format:

  • A vertical line shows the full high/low range
  • A left tick indicates the open
  • A right tick indicates the close

While less intuitive than candles, bar charts provide a cleaner, less biased view of price action. They are preferred by some analysts for:

  • Spotting inside/outside bars
  • Detecting tight consolidation
  • Comparing closing strength across sessions

They also reveal subtle differences in daily structure that can be overlooked in candlestick formats.

Extended-Hours Candle​

Alpha Charts include a special orange candle that overlays extended-hours price action on the daily timeframe. This candle:

  • Combines post-market OHLCV only during the post-market session and after the regular session closes
  • Combines both pre-market and post-market OHLCV during the pre-market session (to show the full extended-hours window leading into the open)
  • Helps visualize the total overnight activity without missing key sentiment shifts

These candles are crucial during:

  • Earnings reports or guidance releases
  • Morning gap-ups or breakdowns
  • Overnight momentum fueled by global markets or news

Most platforms either exclude or bury extended-hours data, but MarketAlpha displays it clearly and cleanly — helping you stay aware of price movement outside the regular session.

Whether you prefer the visual storytelling of candles, the precision of bars, or the added context of extended-hours overlays, Alpha Charts gives you full control — all while powering the AI strategy engine with the complete underlying data.