Program Features: Tools

To enhance the functionality of the Stock Graphs, our service offers a number of tools. These tools make it is possible to search for company names, create custom graph lines, and modify the scales for price and volume. Tools are also provided to modify the presentation of data on Daily graphs and Weekly graphs.

Name Search

The Name Search tool will find and display the company name and symbol of any stock in the O'Neil Database®. This includes all stocks on the American Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange, and an extensive list of bulletin board and Canadian stocks.

Depending on how much is known about a company’s name, it may be useful to perform a search in one of two ways:

1. Names that begin with a series of letters
2. Names that contain a series of letters

If the company name is known and the aim is to find a stock symbol, simply enter the first few letters of the name in the search field and click the "Search" button. This will produce a list with all companies that begin with these letters. For example, a search using the letters "BIO" will display a list of companies that include "Bio Logic Sys" and "Biogen Inc."

NOTE: When searching for a company name that is an acronym or begins with initials, enter a space between each letter (i.e. "A F L A C" for AFLAC and "A T" for AT&T).

When little is known about a company’s name, it is often best to perform a search using a part of the name, or a series of letters. To conduct this type of search, place a check mark next to "Company Name Contains", enter the series of letters in the search field, and click the "Search" button. The display field will contain an alphabetical listing of all stocks where the company names contain a series of letters. For example, a search for "BIO" will display a list of companies that include "Bio Logic Sys" and "Biogen Inc", "Abiomed Inc" and "Antex Biologics Inc."

The display field will provide up to 25 stocks at a time. When a search results in more than 25 stocks, the forward key ("»") font will change from gray to black. Click the forward key to display the next group of up to 25 stocks. When the forward key’s font changes to gray, it is an indication the end of the search list has been reached. The back key ("«") will become active only after the forward key has been utilized. Its font will change to gray when the beginning of the list is reached.

To view the graph of any stock in the display field, double click the desired item, or highlight the item and then click the "Graph" button.

To close the Name Search tool, click the "Close" button, the "X" button, or press the "Escape" key (keyboard).

Line Pen

To make it easier to distinguish chart patterns, areas of support/resistance, and other technical indicators, utilize the Line Pen tool to create red lines on a graph.

Before the Line Pen can be used, it must be activated by clicking "Enable Line Pen." To create a red line, place the mouse cursor on the graph, and press/hold the left mouse button and move the cursor across the chart to the desired location. Release the mouse button to attach the line to the graph.

To remove a drawn line, simply refresh the chart by pressing the Enter key (keyboard) or any of the graph buttons. To disable this tool, click "Disable Line Pen" from the menu.

NOTE: Line Pen marks will not appear when printing from the program.

When the Stock Graphs program is closed, the setting for this feature is saved to your computer as a "cookie." If the service is accessed from another computer, the desired setting must be selected from that computer.

Annotations

A multifunctional tool to create and access stock charts with customized annotations. With this tool, one may create text, lines, curves, highlight chart area, and modify chart background color. To view charts with annotations, click the Annotated Charts List, located at the bottom of the Annotation Toolbar.

To create charts with notes, or to access previously created notes, the Annotation Tool must be activated. This may be done from the Tools menu, by clicking "Enable Annotations." When the Annotation Toolbar opens, the tool is ready to use. To disable this tool, click "Disable Annotations" from the Tools menu. This will cause the Annotation Toolbar and Annotated Charts List (if opened) to close.

For more information on how to use the Annotation Tool, click here.

NOTE: Annotations may be created on the Daily, Weekly and Monthly charts. Intraday charts will not accept annotations.

Stochastic Oscillator

Commonly used as a price momentum indicator, we encourage our members to read extensively on the benefits and limitation of this tool before using it for their investment decisions.

To enable this feature, click the Tools command button and select "Enable Stochastics" from the menu. This will open a small chart area, just above the price chart, and replaces the company description information on the daily, weekly and monthly charts (it is not available for intraday charts).

The stochastic lines are commonly referred as %K (thin line) and %D (thick line). They represent the location of the (most recent close or 20-minute delayed) price relative to the price high/low range over fourteen periods. When viewing a daily chart, the lines are based on a calculation utilizing prices over the 14 trading days, whereas the calculation for a weekly chart will use prices over a 14-week period.

The scale used for the oscillating lines is set for all charts to range from zero to one hundred. Bold horizontal bars are placed at 20 and 80 to correspond with the oversold and overbought theories of this calculation.

The Track-Price tool is useful when correlating oscillating line movements with price and volume bars on the chart.

To disable this tool, select "Hide Stochastics" from the Tool menu.

Change Date

This tool provides the option to change the date of the most recent price and volume bars on a daily chart, to produce a graph with historical activity that is up to five-years old. This is useful for a number of reasons to include examining a chart before a breakout and to view detailed price and volume history one might find on a weekly or monthly chart.

To access the "Change Date" feature, open a daily chart for any stock or index, click the "Tools" button on the command bar and select "Enable Change Date" from the menu. When enabled, the calendar date field and icon will appear to the right of the command buttons. This feature will remain enabled for use with the Daily graph until it is disabled.

The calendar date correlates to the most recent price/volume bar on the graph. The date may be modified by clicking the calendar date field (mm/dd/yyyy presentation) and or by clicking the calendar icon and accessing the drop-down calendar. With the drop-down calendar, the year may be changed by clicking the reverse or forward chevron (« or ») located in the upper left and right corners. To modify the month, click the drop-down button to the right of the month field and select the desired month from the list. Select the specific date by clicking the date on the calendar.

NOTE: The Calendar is accessible only when using Microsoft Internet Explorer.

When the date has been modified, click the Daily button or press Enter key to display the historical chart.

To return to the current date, modify the date as noted above, or simply disable the change date feature from the Tools menu, and then refresh the graph (click a chart button or press the Enter key).

Custom Moving Average Lines

The Daily and Weekly graphs are presented with a 50-day price moving average line (red) and a 200-day price moving average line (black). The Custom Moving Averages tool makes it possible to create additional price moving average lines based on a range of time intervals. With a Daily graph, it is possible to create moving average line(s) based on moving price average(s) ranging from 1 day to 199 days. The Weekly graph provides the option to create moving price average line(s) with a range of 1 week to 155 weeks.

To add and/or modify price moving average lines, click the Tools menu and select "Custom Moving Average." From the window that opens, select the desired moving average interval(s) from the drop-down menu(s) and click the "Apply Changes" button. The graph will refresh with the selected price moving average line(s).

When creating custom moving average lines, it is possible to select a variety of moving average intervals on the Daily and Weekly graphs. To create custom price moving average line(s) on the Weekly graph that match that selected for the Daily graph, select the desired Daily moving average interval(s) and click the box next to "match daily moving average values." When a check mark is placed in this box, the Weekly moving average interval(s) will automatically enter the corresponding interval(s). Click the "Apply Changes" button to enable the modification(s).

NOTE: To manually select Weekly Moving Averages interval(s), the "match daily moving average values" box must NOT have a check mark.

Like the Stock Lists and Line Pen features, modifications made to Custom Moving Average settings on one computer, are accessible from other computers.

Hide/Show Data Boxes

The two small boxes in the upper left area of a Daily graph, containing numerous data items, are known as Data Boxes.

Given that the boxes appear on the graph, it is possible the price lines will be obstructed by these boxes. Where this occurs, it is often useful to remove the boxes. To remove the Data Boxes, select "Hide Data Boxes" from the Tools menu. To restore the Data Boxes, click the "Show Data Boxes" option.

NOTE: This tool applies to Daily graphs and Weekly graphs only.

Hide/Show Events

Among the data items presented on the Daily charts are Corporate Events, Publication Events, and Insider Transactions. To remove these items, select "Hide Events." Click "Show Events" to display these items.

NOTE: This tool applies to Daily graphs only.

Hide/Show All Data Boxes

The Daily graph provides three main data box areas; General Company Information Box; Data Boxes, and Quarterly Earnings/Sales Boxes. To obtain the best technical view of a graph, select "Hide All Data Boxes." This will remove all data boxes, providing additional space for an enlarged graph.

To restore the General Company Information Box, Quarterly Earnings/Sales Boxes, and Data Boxes, select "Show All Data Boxes."

NOTE: This tool applies to Daily graphs only.

Volume Scale Arithmetic/Logarithmic

The Daily, Weekly, and Intraday graphs provide the option to view volume scales based on a logarithmic or arithmetic scale interval. The difference between the two scaling options is evident in the relative height of the volume bars.

Logarithmic scale intervals are based on percentage or proportional changes. For example, the percentage change from 1 to 2 (100%) is same as the movement from 2 to 4 (100%), 4 to 8 (100%), etc. This creates an interval scale useful for comparing relative (percentage) change. The default volume scale for all graphs is logarithmic. If the arithmetic scale is selected, graphs may be viewed with a logarithmic volume scale by selecting "Volume Scale Log."

Arithmetic volume scale is an option for all graphs. An arithmetic scale is one of constant numeric interval change, that is, the distance between each interval is the same numeric value. This scale type is useful for viewing numeric volume changes. To view stocks with an arithmetic volume scale, select "Volume Scale Arithm."

Price Scale Standard/Alternative

The Weekly graphs and Monthly graphs provide two price scale options, Standard and Alternate. While both options utilize logarithmic price scaling, the emphasis of each is slightly different.

With the Standard view, all graphs utilize the same aspect ratio. This makes it possible to directly compare the relative movements of one graph to another. Emphasis is placed on recent price movements to ensure this information is viewable. The Standard price scale is the default setting. When viewing graphs using the Alternative view, select "Price Scale - Standard" to return to this view.

The Alternative price scale incorporates all closing prices over the previous three years (for Weekly graphs) or ten years (for Monthly graphs). This produces a price scale where all price bars are viewable, an important factor when viewing stocks with a history of wide price fluctuations. To view graphs with the Alternate price scale, select "Price Scale - Alternate."

NOTE: This tool applies to Weekly graphs and Monthly graphs only.

Recent Symbol List

To access a multifunctional window containing the names and symbols of up to 20 recently viewed graphs, simultaneously press the "Ctrl" and "Home" keys. The items in the list represent the last symbols viewed, with the most recently viewed symbols at the top of the list.

The names and symbols that appear in the Recent Symbol List window are linked to the graphs—simply click any item to view it. The items in the list, and its order, will remain constant until the "Update List" button is clicked.

This window may be moved and resized to best suit one’s particular viewing needs.

Printer Setup

To print more than one copy of a graph at a time, select another printer, or modify printer settings, it is necessary to access the Printer Setup. After making the desired changes, press "OK" to print.

NOTE: The Printer Setup option will modify printer settings for only one print. To change the default printer, access the Windows Printer folder under Settings.

For assistance with our service, please access the Customer Service resource or write to us at .