Technical Guide

Dates are handled in a uniform manner by StockChart™. When you are asked to enter a date, the following display will be shown:

The format of a date is MM/DD/YY. The year will default to the year shown in the first square brackets. Pressing the [ENTER] key will default to the date shown in the second square brackets. If you choose to enter a date, it must be (at a minimum) MM/DD[ENTER]. The short form will default to the current year. Examples of valid dates are:

Please refer to Appendix 1: Menu Map to get an overview of the relationship of all menu items.

You can return to the Graphs menu from a graph display by pressing any key. Selecting Main from the Graphs menu returns you to the Main Menu.

	*Price Volume Both Zoom Analyze +Stocks Portfolio Main**

Price	Displays the price graph with the price linear regression information.
Volume	Displays the actual volume of trades graph.
Both	Displays the price, linear regression, and volume information.
Zoom	Opens the Zoom Menu.
Analyze	Opens the analysis tools menu.
+Stocks	Allows selection of a stock from the currently active portfolio. This menu item name changes to that of the currently selected portfolio. Using the samples supplied, it will be one of : Stocks, Watch, Indices, or Forex preceded by a "+" sign. The "+" sign is the Lotus 1-2-3 hotkey for this menu item.
*Portfolio	Allows selection of one of the available portfolios as the active portfolio. The Portfolio menu item is preceded by a "*" symbol which is the Lotus 1-2-3 hotkey for this menu item.
Main	Returns to the Main Menu which includes Setup, Options, and Exit

Zooming allows you to display price information for selected date ranges to see more detail than the price graph allows. Selecting Zoom from the main menu displays the following menu:

	View Create Quit

View	Displays the current zoomed graph. A zoomed graph is created (based on the Default setting described below) when the data is loaded. If you have zoomed to a different range of dates, the latest zoomed graph will be displayed. The "latest" zoomed graph is either the default zoomed graph available when the data is loaded with a Stock menu selection ,or the last zoomed range defined using the Create menu selection.
Create	Requests starting and ending dates, then proceeds to set up a zoomed graph based on those dates. As the zooming calculations are being made, a progress meter is displayed. If MaxMin is on, a second progress meter will be shown while minimum, maximum, and end prices are found for the zoomed date range. The zoomed graph will be displayed at the end of the Create process.
Quit	Return to the Graphs menu.

When you select Analyze from the main menu, the following menu is displayed:

	Regression DeltaLR Smooth Extend Find Quit

Regression	Opens the menu to perform linear regression on a range of dates.
DeltaLR	Displays the difference between the price and the price linear regression line for the entire data.
Smooth	Opens the menu to calculate and display a moving average of the price data.
Extend	Displays price data extended 30 days into the future. The extension is based on the linear regression of the last 30 days of price data.
Find	Opens a menu to display the data for specific dates or for a range of dates.
Quit	Returns to the Graphs menu.

When you select Regression from the Analyze menu, the following menu is displayed:

	Auto SetAuto Regress Clear Quit

Auto	Calculates and draws a regression line for prices between the range of dates saved in the SetAuto menu item. The requested regression line may be extended forward, backward, or both depending on options chosen in the Options menu described later in this document.
SetAuto	When you select SetAuto from the Regression menu, The indicator in the upper right corner of the screen will display: Start Date? The upper left portion of the screen will request that you enter a date: MM/DD/[99] [Default[ENTER]: 02/19/99] _ The ending date will be set to the current date for auto regression. The starting date specified in SetAuto will be remembered until it is changed using SetAuto unless you exit StockChart™ without saving the spreadsheet. In that case, they will be remembered for the duration of the current use of the spreadsheet.
Regress	Calculates and draws a regression line for prices between a range of dates. Regress will extend the calculated regression line based on settings for regression accessed through the Options menu. Start and End dates will be asked for each time Regress is selected. After these dates are entered, the message screen will display: Calculating regression for date range A progress meter will be displayed. After the progress meter reaches 100%, StockChart™ will display the price graph with the regression line for the selected date range superimposed with the price data and the overall linear regression line. The requested regression line may be extended forward, backward, or both depending on options chosen in the Options menu described later in this document.
Clear	Removes the calculation and plotting of a regression line.
Quit	Returns to the Graphs menu.

DeltaLR stands for the difference in the price and the linear regression value. This technique makes the linear regression line be the Y = 0 line of the graph. The information shows how far a current price is above or below the trend line.

Smooth is the menu term used to indicate moving average calculation and display. When Smooth is selected, the following menu is presented:

	Moving_Avg Days=15 Quit

Moving_Avg	Calculates and draws the moving average based on the number of days shown in the Days= menu item.
Days=10	Allows changing the number of days used for the moving average calculation. The upper left corner of the screen will show: Enter number of days (Range = 2 to 46) _ A number in the given range may be entered (the high end of the range is the number of days of data divided by four). If the number is outside the range, it will be adjusted to fit in the range. After entering a number, you will be returned to the Smooth menu. The new number of days will be shown in the Days= menu item.
Quit	Returns to the Graphs menu.

Extend shows a display of the price data, data linear regression, and any user linear regression lines extended thirty (30) days into the future. The computation is based on the previous thirty days performance. An example for Microsoft is shown below.

The find menu allows you to access the underlying data. When you select Find from the Analyze menu, the following menu is displayed:

	Start End Date Range Quit

Start	Goes to the starting date of the data. To return to the Find menu, press [ENTER].
End	Goes to the ending date of the data.
Date	Asks for a specific date, then displays the data for that date.
Range	Asks for a range of dates, then displays the data in that range. You are free to move around the range of dates with the up arrow and down arrow keys. I suggest that you do not enter different data in the selected database fields (though there is nothing to stop you from doing so). If you enter dates outside the available range (for example, if today is 2/19/99 and you enter a starting date of 12/1[ENTER], StockChart™ will interpret that as 12/1/99. It will determine that the date is outside the possible range and adjust the starting date to the beginning date of the available data.
Quit	Returns to the Graphs menu.

This ends the detailed discussion of the menus. We will now look at how to manage the stock lists and access data with which StockChart™ will work.

This menu item changes its name to reflect the name of the portfolio currently loaded. As distributed, the name will be +Stocks which indicates that the STOCKS.STK portfolio is active. As other portfolios are selected, the indicator will change to +Indices, +Forex or +Watch. As other portfolio names are added, the indicator will reflect those names (preceded by a "+"). Adding portfolios will be discussed in the section entitled: Data Access.

From the StockChart™ Graphs Menu, press +Stocks. Note that the Lotus 1-2-3 hotkey for any stock list is "+". The screen should look something like:

All or part of a symbol (filename) may be typed to start the process, or the Enter key may be pressed. Optionally, typing /[Enter] will abort the selection process and return to the Main menu. If you enter all or part of a symbol, StockChart™ will limit your selections to those that start with the letters you typed. If you type Enter, StockChart™ will allow you to navigate the entire list of files using the up arrow and down arrow keys.

When the stock you want to process is highlighted, press the Enter key. It is important that you do not type in the highlighted field name. There is nothing good that can come of typing in this field. (Should you accidentally type in the highlighted field, press Enter. When you get back to the main menu, select Portfolio to reload the damaged stock list.)

will be displayed on the screen. A progress meter will give an idea of the percent of completion. The indicator in the top right corner of the screen will show:

When the progress meter gets to 100%, StockChart™ will display a graph of Price history with Volume history (if available) data superimposed on the Price data. The Y axis of the graph is price in dollars. The X axis displays dates (scaled for readability). The displayed graph will be the Price/Volume graph (the Both menu item) for any portfolio except Indices or Forex (which do not report volume information).

To remove the graph from the screen, press ESC, Enter, or any other key except Menu. This action returns you to the Graphs menu. (Pressing the Menu key when Buddy(TM) is active will cause the + and * keys to be mapped to their shifted keys and will cause StockChart(TM) to exit to the Lotus 1-2-3 entry mode).

When you select *Portfolio from the main menu, you will see a screen that looks something like Figure 13: Portfolio selection screen below. This selection process works like the selection of a single stock. You can simply type [Enter] then highlight a portfolio using the arrow keys to navigate up and down the list. When a portfolio is highlighted, type [Enter] to select it. Finally, you can type one or more characters of the portfolio name followed by [Enter][Enter] to select the desired portfolio.

This action makes the selected portfolio active and the stocks contained in that portfolio are available for loading and analysis.

Options are settable items that control other operations and displays in StockChart™. They are where the "User Preferences" get saved. Until changed by the user, the default settings will be in effect.

When you select Options from the main menu, the following menu is displayed:

	LR-Extend Symbols-On MaxMin-Off Init Data Quit

LR-Extend	Displays a menu to control display of any linear regressions you created with the Regress command from the Analyze menu. Settings (described below) allow you to turn off extension, extend the regression backward to the beginning of the data range, extend the regression forward to the end of the data range, or extend both backward and forward. The graph setup routines will be run when you Quit the Options menu
Symbols[On] Symbols[Off]	A toggle that controls whether or not symbols are displayed on certain graphs. The menu item shows which state you will enter when you select the Symbols[??] item. If the menu item says "Symbols[On]", selecting it will turn on symbols. If the menu item says "Symbols[Off]", selecting it will turn off symbols. If you change the setting, the graph setup routines will be run when you Quit the Options menu.
MaxMin[Off] MaxMin[On]	This menu item turns on or off the display of the maximum, minimum, and last closing price in many of the graphs. After changing the setting of MaxMin[??], the graph parameters will be recalculated when Quit is used to exit the Options menu.
Regression[Off] Regression[On]	This menu item controls whether or not the data linear regression lines are displayed the graphs.
Data	Opens a menu to set up defaults for directories and for loading portfolios.
Quit	Exit the Options menu. Recalculate the graph parameters if any of the graphing selections changed, and return to the main menu.

	Directory Portfolio Last-Port Quit

Directory	Allows you to specify the directory which contains your .PRN data files. When you select Dir, the following entry prompt will be shown in the upper left corner of the screen: Data Directory [C:\STOCKS]: _* The directory shown in the square brackets is the current default directory (C:\STOCKS) in this example. You can type a valid directory at the prompt followed by the ENTER key. If you wish to retain the default, exit the prompt with the ESC key.
Portfolio	Allows selection of a default portfolio which will be loaded automatically each time that StockChart™ is loaded.
Last-Port	StockChart™ will be initialized with the last portfolio used before a save-on-exit is executed.
Quit	Returns to the Options menu

Preferences relate to the external processing by the online data access and processing portion of StockChart™. Preferences selected in the viewer will not take effect until the next time the system logs in and processes downloaded data.

When Preferences is selected from the Main Menu, the following menu is presented:

	Months Separate Zoom

Months	Change the default number of months of data to download. This default can be overridden by specifying the number of months of data requested for each stock in the portfolios. StockChart™’s default for Months is 12.
Separate	Specifies the number of days prior to the last date displayed to not display a minimum or maximum value on graphs. This adds to readability of the graph display. StockChart™’s default for Separate is 30.
Zoom	Specifies the number of days of data to display in the precalculated zoom display. StockChart™’s default for Zoom is 90.
Quit	Return to the Main Menu

	Graphs Setup Exit

Graphs	Opens the Graphs Menu.
Setup	Opens the Setup Menu to change Options and Preferences.
Exit	Allows you to save settings on exit or take a quick exit to Lotus 1-2-3.

	Options Preferences Quit

Options	Opens the Options Menu
Preferences	Opens the Preferences Menu
Quit	Returns to the Main Menu