plotly Candlestick Chart in R (4 Examples)

Hi! This tutorial will show you how to build a plotly candlestick plot in the R programming language. It is very simple to do, as you will soon see.

First, though, here is a quick overview of this tutorial:

Let’s get into the R code!

Install & Load R plotly & dplyr Libraries

If you do not have plotly and dplyr libraries already installed in your R programming environment, then in either R Studio or in any other preferred R code editor, run the lines of code below to install and load plotly and dplyr; otherwise, you can skip to the next section in this tutorial.

# install plotly and dplyr
install.packages(c("plotly", "dplyr"))
 
 
# load plotly and dplyr
library(plotly)
library(dplyr)

The R dplyr library is the foremost library for data manipulation and analysis in R programming. It also enables the use of the pipe operator to pipe lines of code together so that they can be run as a chunk.
 

Load Sample Dataset

In this tutorial, we will make use of data from Yahoo Finance via its API. Thankfully, there is an R package that makes it easy to fetch the data from the Yahoo Finance API. However, you can use any other dataset of your choice to follow along with this tutorial.

In your R IDE, run the code below to install and load the quantmod package.

# install quantmod
install.packages("quantmod")
 
 
# load quantmod
library(quantmod)

Having installed and loaded quantmod, we will now fetch Google’s financial data from the Yahoo Finance API and put it into a data frame like so:

getSymbols("GOOG",src = "yahoo")
 
df = data.frame(Date = index(GOOG), coredata(GOOG))

Now, since we want the most recent financial data, we will use the tail() function to get the last 30 rows of the data frame.

df <- tail(df,30)

If you like, you can take a look at the first 10 rows of the data frame to have an idea regarding the data.

print(head(df,10))
 
#           Date GOOG.Open GOOG.High GOOG.Low GOOG.Close  GOOG.Volume GOOG.Adjusted
#4023 2022-12-22    88.930    89.180   86.940      88.26     23656100         88.26    
#4024 2022-12-23    87.620    90.100   87.620      89.81     17815000         89.81
#4025 2022-12-27    89.310    89.500   87.535      87.93     15470900         87.93
#4026 2022-12-28    87.500    88.520   86.370      86.46     17879600         86.46
#4027 2022-12-29    87.030    89.365   86.990      88.95     18280700         88.95
#4028 2022-12-30    87.365    88.830   87.030      88.73     19179300         88.73
#4029 2023-01-03    89.830    91.550   89.020      89.70     20738500         89.70
#4030 2023-01-04    91.010    91.240   87.800      88.71     27046500         88.71
#4031 2023-01-05    88.070    88.210   86.560      86.77     23136100         86.77
#4032 2023-01-06    87.360    88.470   85.570      88.16     26604400         88.16

Let’s now move on with building a simple candlestick plot!

Example 1: Build Simple Candlestick Plot

In this first example, we will build a simple candlestick plot, where we will plot Google’s opening, closing, high, and low data over time. Run the code chunk below to build the visualization.

fig <- df |> 
  plot_ly(x = ~Date, type = "candlestick",
          open = ~GOOG.Open, close = ~GOOG.Close,
          high = ~GOOG.High, low = ~GOOG.Low) |> 
  layout(title = "Simple Candlestick Plot")
 
 
fig

In the plot_ly() function, we indicated the type of plot we wanted to create, by parsing “candlestick” to the type = argument. Then, we also parsed Google’s opening, closing, high, and low data to their respective arguments in the function as well.

By default, the candlestick plot includes a range slider at the bottom of the plot, through which the user can interact with the plot, by dragging the slider along.
 

Example 2: Build Candlestick Plot without Range Slider

In this second example, we will build the same plot as above; but this time, we will remove the range slider widget. Run the code below to create the visualization.

fig <- df |> 
  plot_ly(x = ~Date, type = "candlestick",
          open = ~GOOG.Open, close = ~GOOG.Close,
          high = ~GOOG.High, low = ~GOOG.Low) |> 
  layout(title = "Simple Candlestick Plot",
         xaxis = list(rangeslider = list(visible = FALSE)))
 
fig

As you would notice, the range slider widget has been removed with the help of the layout() function, which disables the display of the range slider by parsing the boolean FALSE to the visible = argument.

Example 3: Build Candlestick Plot with Custom Colors

In this third example, we will build a candlestick plot, using custom colors to highlight the high and low data points.

inc <- list(line = list(color = "#2E86C1"))
dec <- list(line = list(color = "#F39C12"))
 
fig <- df |> 
  plot_ly(x = ~Date, type = "candlestick",
          open = ~GOOG.Open, close = ~GOOG.Close,
          high = ~GOOG.High, low = ~GOOG.Low,
          increasing = inc, decreasing = dec) |> 
  layout(title = "Simple Candlestick Plot")
 
 
fig

First of all, we defined the line colors for the high and low data points, and then parsed those to the arguments increasing = and decreasing = in the plot_ly() function.
 

Example 4: Build Candlestick Plot with Line Tracing

In this fourth and final example, we will build a candlestick plot with line tracing, which connects all the data points on the graph.

fig <- df |> 
  plot_ly(x = ~Date, type = "candlestick",
          open = ~GOOG.Open, close = ~GOOG.Close,
          high = ~GOOG.High, low = ~GOOG.Low) |> 
  add_lines(x = ~Date, y = ~GOOG.Open,
            line = list(color = "black", width = 1.5),
            inherit = FALSE) |> 
  layout(title = "Candlestick Plot with Line Tracing",
         showlegend = FALSE)
 
 
fig

In the code chunk above, we introduced a new function, add_lines(), wherein we mapped Google’s opening data as the line over the graph and defined the line’s specifications, in terms of color and width. Then, in the layout() function, we disabled the legend with showlegend = FALSE, otherwise the traces (boxplot and line) would be shown by default.

Video, Further Resources & Summary

Do you need more explanations on how to make plotly candlestick plots in R? Then you should have a look at the following YouTube video of the Statistics Globe YouTube channel.

In the video, we explain in some more detail how to make plotly candlestick plots in R.

The YouTube video will be added soon.

With that, you can now easily create your own plotly candlestick visualizations in the R programming language. Like said at the start of this tutorial, it is easy and simple to do, just as you have seen. Therefore, I hope you found this tutorial helpful, and I will see you soon in the next one!

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This post has shown how to make plotly candlestick plots in R. In case you have further questions, you may leave a comment below.

This page was created in collaboration with Ifeanyi Idiaye. You might check out Ifeanyi’s personal author page to read more about his academic background and the other articles he has written for the Statistics Globe website.