Swing high
Family VI · Charts & indicators
Not to be confused with swing trading, higher high, swing low.
Swing high is a chart label for a local maximum: a bar or candle whose high is greater than the highs of the bars on either side of it. It is identified after the fact, once the following bars have formed, and is used to map the sequence of peaks and troughs that makes up a price trend.
Identification
A swing high is defined by comparison with its neighbours, so the number of bars required on each side is a choice, not a fixed rule. A common setting is one bar on each side, which produces many small peaks; a setting of three or five bars on each side produces fewer, more significant peaks.
Because the bars to the right must already exist, a swing high is confirmed only after price has moved past it. The most recent high on a chart cannot be labelled a swing high until enough subsequent bars have formed.
Worked example
Use in chart reading
Swing highs and swing lows are the reference points from which trends and patterns are described. A sequence of rising swing highs and rising swing lows is an uptrend; a sequence of lower swing highs and lower swing lows is a downtrend.
Swing highs also serve as horizontal reference levels. Traders watch whether price closes above a prior swing high, stalls at it, or fails below it, and use those outcomes to describe breakout and rejection behaviour.
Often confused with
- swing trading
- A swing high is a single price peak on a chart, whereas swing trading is a style of holding positions for days or weeks to capture such swings; the visible sign is that one is a labelled point on a chart and the other is a trading approach.
- higher high
- A swing high is any local maximum, while a higher high is a swing high that exceeds the previous swing high; the visible sign is that a higher high requires a prior peak for comparison.
- swing low
- A swing high is a local maximum whose high exceeds its neighbours, whereas a swing low is a local minimum whose low is below its neighbours; the visible sign is whether the point sits at the top or the bottom of a price move.
See also
- forex technical analysis indicators
- price action
- fundamental analysis
- support and resistance
- technical analysis
- fibonacci