A fair value gap is a three-candle pattern on a price chart. The wicks of the first and third candles do not overlap, which leaves a price range that the middle candle moved through quickly.
This site is about the chart pattern, not the corporate valuation term of the same name.
GBPUSD, 7 October 2026: 5 gaps by the plain rule. Chosen because it reads clearly. A typical session has 9.
Three candles in a row. Compare the wick of candle 1 with the wick of candle 3, and ignore everything else.
Counts of what the plain three-candle rule finds in 15-minute candles from 06:00 to 18:00 UTC (London and New York), 29 December 2025 to 30 October 2026. It says how many gaps there are in a session, not whether any of them is useful. That is why a chart that marks every gap shows nothing.
Slide candle 3 up and down. The gap appears only when its wick stops overlapping the wick of candle 1. Switch to bearish to see the mirror image.
The explorer needs JavaScript. Without it, the picture above shows the same rule.
A bullish fair value gap, 14 units wide: the low of candle 3 is above the high of candle 1.
When buyers or sellers dominate for a moment, price moves fast in one direction. Orders on the other side are thin, so price passes through some levels with few trades done at them. The big middle candle crosses a stretch the outer candles never reach.
Traders read that stretch as a place where the market did not get to trade both ways. That idea is where the word "fair value" comes from. It is a trader's label for the idea, not a measurement of fair value in any financial sense.
The usual explanation, offered as a way to think about the pattern. It is not a proven law of markets.
Most traders mark the gap on the chart and watch what happens if price trades back into it.
A gap is not a signal. It does not say that price must return, that a return will hold, or which way price goes afterwards. Price often does not return at all.
There is no single agreed definition. Educators who teach the pattern draw the line in different places:
Some require a minimum size, so that small gaps are ignored. Some require that candle 2 be a displacement candle, meaning a large, fast move. Some measure the gap between candle bodies instead of wicks.
Where another educator uses a different rule, the same chart can show a gap on one site and none on another. When you compare examples, check the definition first.
This site: three candles, wicks only, no minimum size.
Real 15-minute candles, with every gap the three-candle rule finds in the window. Each box runs from its gap until price trades through it.
These days were chosen, not sampled. Each has a readable number of gaps (5 or 6), both directions, and at least one gap price came back to and one it did not. A typical window has 9, so most real charts are busier than these.
6 gaps (3 bullish, 3 bearish). Gap 2 is the widest, 0.00051 in price. By 18:00 UTC price had traded through 5 of them and had not come back to 1.
6 gaps (2 bullish, 4 bearish). Gap 3 is the widest, 7.15 in price. By 18:00 UTC price had traded through 4 of them and had not come back to 1.
6 gaps (2 bullish, 4 bearish). Gap 1 is the widest, 0.115 in price. By 18:00 UTC price had traded through 5 of them and had not come back to 1.
Each item says whether it exists yet. Nothing is shown as available until it is.
Real days, real candles, every gap the rule finds marked on the chart with its price range and what price did next. Three are on this page. The example gallery has fourteen, with a pair and date picker.
Open the example galleryDefinition, the rule, how gaps form, filling and mitigation, and the mistakes, in one reference page. Read the guide.
The latest session in the archive for seven pairs and gold, with the gaps the same rule finds and the time the data ends. See the pairs.
The same rule as a TradingView and a MetaTrader tool. None is released yet. It will live on the fvg indicator site.
A close cousin of the gap, with its own rule and its own mistakes. See order blocks explained.
The same three candles read differently in a strong trend, in a range and after a break of structure. Read about a market structure shift next.
Listed in the order beginners tend to meet them.
Short answers. The guide goes further and the question page has more.
On a price chart, a fair value gap is a three-candle pattern in which the wicks of the first and third candles do not overlap. The middle candle moved through that price range quickly, so little trading took place inside it.
No. A price gap is empty space between one candle and the next, for example after a weekend. A fair value gap sits inside a run of three candles and can appear while the market is trading without a break. A price gap at the open can create one, but the two ideas are different.
No. Price sometimes returns to a gap and sometimes never does. A gap marks a zone that traders watch, not a promise of what price will do next.
Price filling a gap means it trades back into the gap range. A partial fill reaches part of the range, and a full fill trades through all of it. Mitigation is the word many traders use for the same return to the zone.
The three-candle rule can be applied on any timeframe. Gaps on higher timeframes cover more price and many traders give them more weight, but a gap on its own says little about direction.
Many educators use fair value gap, imbalance and inefficiency for the same idea. Some draw small differences between them, so check how each source defines its terms before comparing examples.
The rule, the two directions and the mistakes on one page. What is in it.
Sign-up is not switched on yet, so the form will say so if you try it.