Gaps inside a session on the one-minute chart

[Amanhasnoname]

A gap on a one-minute chart is not only a Sunday thing. In quiet or news-hit conditions, a bar can open 3 or 4 pips away from where the previous bar closed, because no ticks arrived in between. Cross pairs and exotics do it far more than majors.

These bars quietly damage indicator-based scalping. ATR jumps because the gap counts as range, so stops sized from ATR become wider than the real market justifies. A breakout rule that checks "close above the previous high" can fire on a gap that never traded through the level. Moving averages and bands show a sudden kink that disappears minutes later.

The fix is cheap. For every bar, calculate the absolute difference between the open and the previous close and compare it with the current spread. If the gap is bigger than something like twice the spread, either mark the bar as unreliable, strip it from the ATR calculation, or skip signals for a couple of bars after it.

Counting them is informative too. On a main pair over a week, plenty of traders discover the number is larger than assumed and clusters around specific hours and events.

How many one-minute bars a week on your main pair open more than 2 pips from the previous close?