Heikin Ashi Chart

How Heikin Ashi candles are calculated

According to StockCharts, heikin means average in Japanese and ashi means pace, and the candles use "the open-close data from the prior period and the open-high-low-close data from the current period to create a combo candlestick." The four values, as StockCharts gives them:

• HA close = (open + high + low + close) / 4 of the current candle.
• HA open = (previous HA open + previous HA close) / 2.
• HA high = the highest of the high, the HA open and the HA close.
• HA low = the lowest of the low, the HA open and the HA close.

The first candle needs a starting open, so StockCharts uses (open + close) / 2 and notes that its effect "will dissipate over time (usually seven to 10 periods)." This page does the same and starts all counts and tests after the first 10 candles. A candle is green when its HA close is above its HA open and red when it is below.

The result is smoother than a regular chart, but it is not a price chart. TradingView's help center says it plainly: "Heikin Ashi candles show the average prices, not the actual prices." That is why the chart draws the real close as a dotted line, the hover shows both candles, and every test on this page trades at real prices.

Bitcoin's Heikin Ashi candles now

On September 26, 2026, the last day in this data, bitcoin's real candle rose from $84,029.10 to $84,376.00, yet its Heikin Ashi candle was red: the average of the day's four prices, $84,135.88, sat below the HA open of $84,280.00 carried over from the days before. It was the third red Heikin Ashi candle in a row. Such disagreements are common: since November 24, 2018, the Heikin Ashi color and the real candle's direction differed on 1,022 of 2,864 days. On the weekly chart, the candle for the week of September 14 was green, the fifth green week in a row.

How long do Heikin Ashi runs last?

From November 24, 2018 to September 26, 2026, bitcoin's daily Heikin Ashi candles formed 335 green runs and 335 red runs, with a median length of 3 days for both. Regular candles changed color far more often, in 1,524 runs over the same days. The longest green run lasted 22 days, from September 30 to October 21, 2021, while the real price rose 49.9%; the longest red run lasted 23 days in June 2024, with the price down 14.0%.

TradingView's guide says "The more similarly-colored consecutive candles you see, the more likely the current trend is coming to an end." Bitcoin's daily candles only partly agree. After one green candle the next was also green 80.9% of the time, and after eight or more still 78.3%. Red streaks did fade: the chance of another red candle fell from 81.2% after one red day to 67.7% after eight or more. Either way, even a long streak was more likely to go on for another day than to end.

Shadows mattered too. StockCharts writes of rising candles that "The absence of a lower shadow also reflects strength." After a green candle with no lower shadow, the next candle was also green 89.5% of the time (651 of 727); after one with a lower shadow, 67.4% (536 of 795).

Two Heikin Ashi rules, tested with fees

The tests start with $10,000 on November 25, 2018, decide at each daily close and trade at the next day's real open with a 0.1% fee and 0.05% slippage per trade.

• Color change. Holding after green candles and selling after red ones ended at $37,657.69, against $222,518.63 for buying and holding. Only 114 of its 335 round trips made money, and it paid $36,757.70 in fees and slippage.
• Two in a row. Waiting for two candles of the same color cut the trades to 227 round trips and ended at $29,233.42.

On weekly candles the color rule did better, ending at $195,421.07 against $229,239.60 for buying and holding, with a worst drop of 50.8% instead of 75.2%. On daily candles it finished ahead of buying and holding only for solana, whose price fell over the test.

The Heikin Ashi price trap

Run the same color rule but pretend to buy and sell at the Heikin Ashi close of each signal candle, and $10,000 becomes $49,070,022.58 instead of $37,657.69. That number is fiction. A Heikin Ashi close is an average of the day's open, high, low and close, known only after the day ends, when the market trades at the real close. On 996 of 1,522 green days the Heikin Ashi close sat below the real close, and on 812 of 1,342 red days above it, so the pretend fills kept buying low and selling high. TradingView lists Heikin Ashi charts as "Less precise for pinpointing exact entry and exit levels." Test any Heikin Ashi idea on real prices.

Using the converter

Paste candles, one per line and oldest first: open, high, low, close. The converter returns each Heikin Ashi candle and shows every step for the newest one; the fill button loads the last 30 real candles of the chosen coin. Because each HA open carries the whole past, the first rows of a short list can differ from the chart, but the gap halves with every candle: with bitcoin's last 30 daily candles, the newest row matches the chart to the cent.

For regular candles, read what is a candlestick and the candlestick patterns guide, or trade a hidden real chart day by day in chart replay.