Close versus intraweek extreme
Why can a week's closing price sit far from anywhere the market actually traded during that week?
In plain words
The weekly close is the last price before the week ends, while the intraweek extremes are the highest and lowest prices traded at any moment. The close can land near the middle of the week's range or pushed towards one edge, depending on where trading ended relative to where it went.
Why it matters
A weekly close near one edge of the range says the week finished with momentum on that side, while a close near the middle suggests the extremes were temporary. Charts and indicators built on weekly closes can therefore hide how far price actually travelled inside the week.
In a real week: BTC, week of 3 March 2025
In the week of 3 March 2025, BTC opened at 94,269.99, reached a high of 94,416.46 at 00:00 UTC on Monday, and fell to a low of 80,000.00 at 23:00 UTC on Sunday. The close of 80,734.37 sat near that low, with close_location_pct at 5.1%, labelled in the lower third of the week range, against a total range of 18.02%.
A common mistake
Reading the weekly open and close as the full story of the week. The range between the intraweek high and low can exceed the net change between those two prices, since both extremes may lie well outside them.