Viewing SharpCharts

The SharpCharts Workbench is not just for editing your SharpCharts; it also allows for close study of the charts you've created.

The Inspector tool allows you to view the OHLC price and volume data for each bar on your chart.

The workbench can be configured to automatically refresh the chart with the latest price data available to you.

Read on to learn more about the chart-viewing features available on the SharpCharts Workbench.

Creating a Chart

Before you can view a chart, you need to create it. Luckily, creating a SharpChart from the SharpCharts Workbench is as easy as entering a new ticker symbol in the Symbol Box above the chart. There are also a number of ways to create a SharpChart from outside the SharpChartsWorkbench:

• Clicking on a ticker symbol anywhere on the StockCharts website.

• Typing a ticker symbol into the Create a Chart box, then clicking Go.

• Typing a ticker symbol into the box in the SharpCharts section of the Charts & Tools page, then clicking Go.

• Clicking on many of the charts in our Articles and ChartSchool areas.

• Clicking on the SharpCharts icons on our various reports and scan results pages.

The Inspector

If you want to examine the data that makes up the bars on a SharpChart, you can check the Inspect checkbox above the chart, which will cause an interactive cursor to appear. This cursor lets you see the data values for any of the bars as you move your mouse over them. You can also click and drag your mouse either horizontally or vertically to measure time/price distances between two points. Hold down SHIFT to make the crosshairs appear thinner.

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Note: The “Y” data value is the mouse's vertical position inside the current panel. It can be used to see the values of indicators in panels above or below the price panel.

Note: When the Inspector loads, it re-requests your chart with additional data. That additional data can slow down the chart's loading time significantly. Therefore, you should only enable the Inspector checkbox when you need it.

Note: Hold down the CTRL (CMD on a Mac) key to make the floating databox invisible.

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Auto-Refresh

You can always update a SharpChart with the latest data by manually clicking the “Update” button on the SharpCharts workbench.

In addition, when the markets are open, the Refresh dropdown allows members to automatically update the data for the SharpChart that is currently on the workbench. The dropdown can be used to specify how frequently the chart updates. Basic and Extra members can have charts update as frequently as once every 15 seconds. Pro members can have charts update as often as once every 5 seconds.

Combining the auto-refresh feature with your browser's ability to open multiple tabs/windows allows it to create large collections of auto-updating charts. However, you must understand the “chart requests per second” limitation before doing that.

Basic and Extra members cannot automatically request more than one chart per second from our servers (on average over an extended period). Pro members cannot request more than two charts per second.

For example, if a Basic member opens 15 different browser tabs and has a SharpChart auto-refreshing every 15 seconds inside each tab, they would have hit the allowable limit, i.e., 15 charts (1 chart / 15 seconds) = 1 chart per second. If they opened up a 16th tab with another auto-refreshing chart in it, they would violate our policy. On the other hand, if they reduced the refresh rate for all of their charts to once every 30 seconds, they could have up to 30 different charts refreshing simultaneously. And so on…

Please see our Excessive Chart Requests Policy for more information.