LTP, Open, High, Low & Close
The five prices that summarise a stock’s day, and what each one tells you.
Open a stock’s page and five numbers greet you. Together they compress a whole day of trading into a quick story.
- Open — the first traded price of the day (set by the pre-open auction).
- High — the highest price reached.
- Low — the lowest price reached.
- LTP (Last Traded Price) — the most recent trade; the “live” price you see ticking.
- Close — the official end-of-day price (usually a weighted average of the last 30 minutes, not just the final tick).
The close is not simply the last trade — it’s a volumeThe number of shares or contracts traded in a period.-weighted average of the final window, so a single odd trade at 3:30 can’t distort the “official” price the whole market references. That’s why your LTP at 3:29 can differ slightly from the closing price.
Read together, these tell a story: open near the low and close near the high = buyers won the day; a high far above the close = a rally that faded. This is the raw material of candlestickA chart bar showing a period’s open, high, low and close. charts (a whole module later).
Key takeawayOpen/High/Low/Close summarise the day’s price action; LTP is the live last trade. The close is a weighted average, not the final tick.
FAQs
Why is the closing price different from the last price I saw?
The official close is computed as a volume-weighted average price of the last ~30 minutes, which smooths out manipulation and odd late trades. The LTP is just the single most recent trade, so they can differ slightly.