Gap between hour and day
Why can an hourly chart and a daily chart tell opposite stories about the same week?
In plain words
Markets can look violent on a short timeframe and quiet on a longer one, or the reverse. An hourly chart shows every swing in full; a daily chart compresses each day into a single open-to-close move, hiding how the price travelled there.
Why it matters
Timeframe shapes the picture a trader acts on. A long swing that looks alarming on an hourly chart may barely register on a daily one, so reading only one timeframe can misstate how large a move really was, or how directional it was.
In a real week: ETH, week of 3 February 2025
ETH fell 8.45% over the week starting 3 February 2025. On the hourly chart it swung 37.46% from low to high, with a largest single hourly drop of 11.74% on Monday at 01:00 UTC. On the daily chart, the worst day fell only 5.16% on 4 February, and the best day rose 2.09% on 5 February.
A common mistake
Assuming the timeframe with the most detail gives the truest picture. More bars mean more noise, and a dramatic hourly pattern may average into a modest daily move.