Candles are the primary way market price action is visualized on Polyester. They aggregate executed trades over a fixed time interval, making it easier to understand market direction, volatility, and momentum at a glance.
They are derived entirely from completed trades, not orders or quotes.
Candles integrate directly with Polyester’s charting system, allowing users to zoom across timeframes, apply indicators, and analyze price action.
To learn more about advanced charting features, indicators, and drawing tools, see Trading Tools.
What a Candle Represents
Each candle summarizes all trades that occurred within a specific time window.
For a given interval, a candle captures the OHLCV:
- Open: the price of the last trade from the previous interval
- High: the highest execution price
- Low: the lowest execution price
- Close: the price of the last trade of the current interval
- Volume: the total amount traded during that interval
Together, these values show how price moved and where trading activity concentrated during that period.
Timeframes
Candles are available across a wide range of timeframes, from very short intervals (as low as 1 second per candle) to longer intervals (such as 1 day and above).
Very short timeframes, like 1s or 5s candles, are typically used to observe immediate price reactions, order flow sensitivity, and short-lived momentum around events such as large trades, volatility spikes, or rapid shifts in liquidity. These views make it easier to see how price responds in real time as trades interact in the order book.
Mid-range timeframes, such as 1m, 5m, or 15m candles, aggregate this activity into more readable intervals. They help surface short-term structure, local trends, and consolidation ranges without the noise of every individual trade.
Longer timeframes, including hourly or daily candles, compress market activity further to emphasize broader price direction and longer-term market structure. These views smooth out short-term fluctuations and make sustained moves easier to identify.
All candle timeframes are generated from the same underlying trade data. The difference between them is purely how that data is grouped over time. This allows traders with different objectives and time horizons to analyze the market using a shared, consistent view of price history.
Real-Time and Historical Data
Candles update every ~100ms as new trades execute. When a candle’s interval is still active, its values adjust dynamically as trades continue to occur. Once the interval ends, the candle is finalized and becomes part of the permanent historical record.