Historical stock prices format Historical stock prices data can commonly be obtained in daily update format. The following fields are found in each record: Date Company name or ticker symbol Open Day high Day low Close Trading volume Note: the ordering of the above fields may vary from different data sources. Data examples: 20061212,AAPL,88.61,88.84,85.53,86.14,369696 20061213,AAPL,87.95,89.07,87.15,89.05,306256 (These records have comma delimited fields, and each end with new lines.)

Reading historical prices - step 1 Select open mode Trend-View provides a specialized file input mode for historical stock data. To access this feature, go to the File menu, and select Open Stock History File Select data field delimiter Since data records may have been presented using a variety of different delimiting characters, Trend-View requires users to specify the correct delimiter. Users can use the "input file control" dialog box (automatically opened) to select/specify a delimiter. e.g. separate fields in each record using "commas"

Figure 1. The "Text Import Wizard" dialog box

Reading historical prices - step 2 Select field Trend-View will rearrange the stock prices data to facilitate analysis. The input data records will be indexed by company, and by date: each row contains all data for one company, and each column contains all data for one day. The values in each cell (for analysis) can be specified by the user to be one of the following: Open Day high Day low Close Trading volume Custom difference (for example: Day high - Open) For example, if the original data is: Date, Company, Open, Day high, Day low, Close, Trading volume 20061201,AAPL,91.8,92.33,90.1,91.32,284147 20061204,AAPL,91.91,92.05,90.5,91.12,253672 20061205,AAPL,91.655,92.33,90.87,91.27,236847 20061206,AAPL,90.645,91.39,89.67,89.83,228109 20061207,AAPL,90.025,90.5,86.9,87.04,359189 20061208,AAPL,87.23,89.39,87,88.26,280323 20061211,AAPL,88.9,89.3,88.05,88.75,178780 ... ... And user chooses to analyze "Day high" field, the Trend-View spreadsheet will open to show: [Ticker symbol] [20061201] [20061204] [20061205] ... [AAPL] [92.33] [92.05] [92.33] [91.39] [90.5] [89.39] [89.3] ... Since various stock price sources may arrange the data fields differently, users need to specify which are the company name/ticker symbol, and date fields, as well as the field of interest for analysis (using the automatically opened dialog box).

Figure 2. The "Stock Data Import Wizard" dialog box

Investigating short term stock behavior To look for stocks that exhibit significant price fluctuations on a daily basis, users can use the following procedure: In the Stock Data Import Wizard, select "Difference", and Day high, Open fields (this will open the spreadsheet to show daily (Day high - Open) values for each stock Right click in the spreadsheet window and select "Find data" In the "Find data" dialog box, as an example enter "0.8" for "Find value/text" and select "Above", then click OK Users can observe the output color index image, where mostly colored entries (horizontal stripes) would represent stocks that vary in price greater than $0.8 almost every day. Figure 3. Color indexed data-find feature on historical stock prices: each colored square represents a day when stock price varied for greater than $0.8; hence horizontal colored stripes represent stocks of significant daily activity. Observing data of interest Right click on the color index image, select "Line graph" Select "By Row" in the dialog box On the color-index image, right click and drag cursor to areas of interest (mostly colored horizontal stripes) Users can view automatically refreshed line graph and exact values in the spreadsheet window for numerical trends. Extra features in the spreadsheet, color-index image, and line graph windows: Right click in the window to view respective features menu Use F1, F2, or Ctrl + mouse scroll wheel to zoom

Investigating long-term stock behavior To look for stocks that exhibit desired long-term growth, users can use the following procedure: In the Stock Data Import Wizard, select Day low field for analysis Right click in the spreadsheet window and select "Data trend color analysis" Select "Row independent" in the dialog box, and click OK Users can observe the output color index image, where gradual color progressions (from purple to blue to red) would indicate a steady price increase over time. Figure 4. Color indexed data-find feature on historical stock prices: colors can be assigned in a row-independent manner to show long term trends; hence horizontal colored stripes that progress from purple to red represent steadily increasing stocks. Observing data of interest Right click on the color index image, select "Line graph" Select "By Row" in the dialog box On the color-index image, right click and drag cursor to areas of interest (color index stripes that show price increase over time) In the line graph window, right click at low and high points on the curve and select "Set Marker" to label the graph with numerical references. Extra features in the spreadsheet, color-index image, and line graph windows: Right click in the window to view respective features menu Use F1, F2, or Ctrl + mouse scroll wheel to zoom