Provisional OHLCV Candle
A provisional OHLCV candle is an open or recently closed candle that may still change as late trades, corrections, or backfilled market data are processed.
In market data systems, OHLCV candles summarize trading activity over a fixed time interval, such as one minute, one hour, or one day. A candle is provisional when the data provider or consuming application cannot yet guarantee that all relevant market events for that interval have been received and processed.
Provisional candles are common in real-time and near-real-time crypto market data because exchanges can publish trades with delays, revise data, or deliver events out of order. A candle may also remain provisional immediately after its period boundary while reconciliation and quality checks are performed. During this phase, the candle’s close price, high, low, and volume can still change.
Once the provider’s finality rules have been satisfied, the candle may be treated as final. Until then, applications should treat provisional candles as mutable observations rather than immutable historical records.
Why It Matters
Understanding provisional OHLCV candles helps trading systems, charting applications, analytics platforms, and backtesting pipelines avoid false assumptions about data stability.
If an application treats provisional candles as final too early, it may display inaccurate chart values, trigger incorrect signals, or create mismatches between live analytics and later historical datasets. For example, a strategy may calculate an indicator from a candle that later receives additional volume or a revised close price.
Clear handling of provisional candles also improves auditability. By distinguishing provisional data from finalized candles, teams can decide when to calculate indicators, store snapshots, run reconciliations, or refresh historical results.
How is a provisional OHLCV candle different from a final candle?
A provisional OHLCV candle may still change. A final candle is no longer expected to change under the provider’s finality policy.
The difference is not the candle format itself, but the reliability state of the values. Both provisional and final candles can contain the same OHLCV fields, but provisional values should be considered subject to revision. Final candles are suitable for historical analysis, reporting, and reproducible backtesting.
When do OHLCV candles become provisional?
An OHLCV candle is typically provisional while its time interval is still open and may remain provisional for a short period after the interval closes.
For example, a one-minute candle for 12:00:00 to 12:01:00 is provisional while trades are still occurring inside that interval. It can also remain provisional after 12:01:00 if late-arriving market data, exchange corrections, or reconciliation processes are still being applied.
How should developers handle provisional OHLCV candles?
Developers should design applications so provisional candles can be updated or replaced. This usually means avoiding assumptions that the latest candle is immutable, storing update timestamps, and refreshing recent candles after a reconciliation window.
For live charts, provisional candles can be displayed in real time and updated as new data arrives. For backtests, reports, or accounting-style analytics, developers should prefer finalized candles or clearly record the dataset vintage used.
Real-World Example
A trading dashboard displays a 1-minute BTC/USD candle immediately after the minute ends. At first, the candle shows:
- Open: 67,000
- High: 67,120
- Low: 66,980
- Close: 67,050
- Volume: 18.4 BTC
Several seconds later, the data provider receives delayed trades from the exchange. After processing them, the candle is revised:
- High: 67,140
- Close: 67,090
- Volume: 19.1 BTC
The original candle was provisional. The later version is closer to the final market record and may eventually become final after the provider’s reconciliation process is complete.