Two-sided week
What does it mean when a market falls hard and rallies hard in the same week?
In plain words
A two-sided week contains both a large up day and a large down day. The net change from Monday's open to Sunday's close can be modest or large, but it hides the fact that two opposite moves of similar size happened in sequence.
Why it matters
The weekly return alone describes the destination, not the journey. A trader sized for the net move can be caught repeatedly by the daily swings, and stop levels placed for a one-direction week may be hit on both sides before the week ends.
In a real week: BTC, week of 2 February 2026
In the week of 2 February 2026, BTC fell 14.02% on Thursday 5 February, then rose 12.19% on Friday 6 February, the best day of the week. The weekly return was -8.62%, from an open of 76968.22 to a close of 70330.38. The range from the high of 79360.0 on Monday to the low of 60000.0 on Friday was 32.27%.
A common mistake
Reading the weekly return as a measure of how turbulent the week was. A week can end close to where it started and still be violently two-sided.