Charts

TCScan+'s Charts allow you to graphically review the items passing your filter criteria.  You can specify preferences to have charts displayed during the scan, after the scan is complete and also whether to open the charts in TeleChart at the same time.  The chart will automatically display items relating to the scan type you are running and you can also draw additional objects on it, which will be retained until you delete them.  Various actions can be executed by selecting items from the main or right-click menus, and by using shortcut keys or the toolbar buttons. (Click on the toolbar icons below to be directed to further help.)

Navigation

The toolbar buttons and shortcut keys will allow you to navigate through your stock's data on the chart.  The behavior of the navigation buttons is different from what you may be used to from other charting programs.  When you click one of the buttons, TCScan+ will actually change the appropriate parameter (e.g. lookback period) on the main TCScan+ form, then rerun your current scan using the new parameters.  However, it runs the new scan with your general filter settings ignored.  It does this because it is likely that as you, for example, move back in time, your current filter settings, like number touches to a line, will not be met - and so a line would not be found. Because of this behavior you will notice that while you are navigating on the chart, the other items in your results list will be grayed out to indicate the new settings shown on the main form do not apply to them.  When you move to a new item in your results list or click within the results list, the settings you had before the chart navigation began will be restored.  Another consequence of the way TCScan+ reruns the scan with each navigation change, is that chart navigation may not be as quick as you might expect, especially with certain scans like the CandleStick one in Editable Patterns mode.  If this is a problem use the modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl and both Ctrl and Shift) to increase the step size taken between changes.

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Time Frame  You can change the chart time frame by clicking on one of the three 'T' buttons on the toolbar.  will move down in time frame (monthly > weekly > daily) and will move up in time frame.  Clicking will open a list from which you can select the time frame. You can also select the time frame by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking D (daily), W (weekly), M (monthly), Q (Quarterly), Y (yearly) or the numeric keys (also while holding down Ctrl.)  The numeric keys will specify the number days per bar, e.g., weekly charts are 5 days per bar.

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Panning (Left/Right)  Clicking one of the left/right arrow toolbar buttons will move the chart left or right by one bar.  If you hold the Shift key down while clicking, the movement will change by 5 bars instead of 1.  Using Ctrl will change by 25 bars and using both Ctrl and Shift will change by 50 bars.  These buttons will actually be changing the shift value on the main form.  If you keep the button pressed down, the chart will scroll until the button is released, or until the new conditions cause the stock to fail your scan criteria (see the introduction to Navigation above.)  The actions of these buttons can be duplicated using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard (including the Shift/Ctrl modifiers to speed up movement.) You can also click the S key to bring up a dialog box allowing you to enter the exact number of shift bars required. When using a shift value greater than 0, you can choose whether to display bars to the right of the scan date, i.e., bars within the shift period, by selecting 'Shift Bars Visible' from the Change menu.  A vertical red dotted line will be drawn to indicate where the shift period starts. 

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Number Bars on Chart  Clicking or will zoom in (less bars on chart) and zoom out (more bars on chart) respectively.  This will actually be changing the lookback period on the main form.  As described above, keeping the button depressed will continue increasing or decreasing the number of bars on your chart.  Also as described above, you can use the Ctrl and/or Shift keys to speed up movement.  The function of these buttons is duplicated by the [ or , and ] or . keys on your keyboard.  You can also click the D key to bring up a dialog box allowing you to enter the exact number of bars required. 

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Price Scaling  Clicking on the toolbar, pressing Ctrl-L or selecting Scaling from the Change menu will toggle between normal and logarithmic price scaling. 

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Revert  After you have used the above buttons to scroll through the chart data, you can revert to the way the chart initially appeared before you did any time frame, bar count, etc. changes to it by clicking the   button. You do not need to do this to progress to the next item in your scan list as TCScan+ will automatically do that, but some times it is useful to see where you started.   

Chart Operations

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Saving Charts  Charts can be saved in various file formats by clicking on the toolbar or selecting Save Chart Picture from the File Menu.  Charts for multiple items in the results list can be saved at once by selecting Save Chart Pictures for Results List from the File menu.  Further details on this option are described in the Reviewing Results section.

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Printing Charts  Pressing the P key or clicking will bring up the print settings box, allowing you to print the chart to your printer.  You can also select Print Chart from the right-click or File menus.

bullet Zooming Clicking on the toolbar, pressing the Z key or selecting Zoom In from the View menu will put you into zoom mode.  The cursor will change to a magnifying glass icon allowing you to click and drag the region you want to zoom into.  You can also just click the chart to zoom in by a set amount (or hold the Alt key down while clicking to zoom out.)  To zoom out again, you can click the X key or select Zoom Last from the View menu to toggle between the current zoom and the previous view.  Clicking the Q key or selecting Zoom All from the View menu will zoom out to the whole original chart. The zoom last and zoom all function are duplicated by holding down the Shift and Ctrl keys, respectively, when clicking on the zoom toolbar button. 

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CrossHair Cursor Clicking the toolbar button, pressing the O key or selecting Crosshair Cursor from the View menu will toggle between the regular chart cursor and a crosshair cursor. 

Chart Properties

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Changing Colors  You can change most of the colors used on the chart by pressing the C key, selecting Change Colors on the right-click menu or pressing the toolbar button .  To prevent confusion, TCScan+ shows only the chart colors for the specific scan type you are currently running.

Select a new color by clicking on the applicable color swatch.  Click Apply to apply the new colors to the chart without closing the form.  Click OK to apply the colors and close the form, or click Cancel to close the form without saving any color changes.  Click Defaults to return all colors for the specific scan type to their default first-install values.

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Chart Size  You can increase or decrease the size by dragging the border of the Chart, by pressing the Page Up or Page Down key, or by selecting from the View menu.  You can make the currently-displayed chart size the default by selecting Save Current Chart Size as default on the right-click or File menus.  You can return a chart to its current default size by selecting Return Chart to Default Size from the Right-Click or View menus.  You can also return it to its first-install default size using File > Return default size to install setting.  

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Chart Margins You can adjust the amount of extra space added to the top, bottom and right margins by selecting the appropriate item from the Change menu or under Change on the Right-Click menu.  The changes you make will apply to all future-drawn charts, until you change them again.  You can also use the left and right arrow keys to adjust the right margin, the up and down keys to adjust the bottom margin, and the up and down arrow keys along with the Ctrl key to adjust the top margin.  You can hold the Shift key down along with the above combinations to get larger increases in the changes made.  Note that the chart margins might not always move when you change the setting or press the arrow keys.  This is a result of how the axes are scaled and numbered - just repeat the action until movement occurs.

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Price Bars You can click the toolbar button, press the E key or select Bar Type from the Change menu to toggle between regular OHLC bars, candlestick bars and lines.  This option can also be accessed via the preferences form.  Clicking the numeric keys from 0 to 9 will change the number of real bars to display per bar.  This provides a different function to changing the time frame above.  In this case, only the chart is affected - the scan is not changed.  Also, this function applies in addition to the time frame, so if you press 5 and the time frame is weekly, then each bar on the chart will actually summarize 5 weeks of data. You can also access this function by selecting Days per Bar from the Change menu.  The latter method allows greater than 9 days per bar.

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Information  The item name and date range is shown on the title bar when the chart is opened or the item is changed.  Moving the mouse cursor over the chart will change the caption to show the date, value and Open/High/Low/Close at the mouse cursor position on the chart.  Summary information is also printed at the bottom of the chart. When drawing lines, the caption bar will change to include the change in price (dP), change in bars (Bays) and Strength of the move covered by the line.  The Strength is calculated as the square of the change in Price divided by the number of Bays covered by the move.  It is an indication of the strength of a move and was developed and described by Alex Saitta in the October 2000 issue of Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities Magazine.  The idea is that as succeeding up or down moves lose Strength then a major reverse move is likely.

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Scan Details  You can click the toolbar button, press the G key, or select Scan Details Text from the View menu to show a summary of the scan details (actually a copy of what is shown in the results table) on the chart.

User-drawn Objects (Lines, Circles, Fib Levels, Fib Spirals)

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Copying Program Objects  Program-drawn objects can be copied as user-drawn objects by pressing the W key or selecting Copy program objects from the Edit menu.  For example, if you have run a trendline scan, you can press W on the chart and the trendlines found by the program will be copied onto your chart, so when you do another scan type they will still be there.

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Creating Objects

  • Lines can be drawn by clicking and dragging with the left mouse button.  They can be constrained to horizontal or vertical by holding down the Shift key while drawing the line. 

  • Circles  and ellipses can be drawn by clicking and dragging with the left mouse button while holding down the Alt key.  Small circles can be created by holding down the Alt key and clicking on the chart.  Circles can be constrained to perfect circles (rather than ellipses) by holding the Shift key down at the same time as the Alt key. 

  • Fibonacci Level Lines can be drawn by clicking and dragging with the left mouse button while holding down the Ctrl key.  The specific levels shown for user-drawn Fibonacci levels are identical to those listed on the Fibonacci Scan tab.

  • Fibonacci Spirals can be drawn by clicking and dragging with the left mouse button while holding down both the Ctrl and Shift keys.

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Selecting Objects  User-drawn objects can be selected by clicking on them.  Once an object is selected, it will have small squares called anchors shown on it.  These anchors can be moved to move the start and end points of the object, or the object can be dragged as a whole by clicking and dragging between the anchor points.  Note that to select Fibonacci Spirals you need to click on the pivot line used to create the Spirals.  You can switch from one selected object to the next by pressing the N key. 

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Adjusting and Modifying Objects  Once you have selected an object, you can move its anchor points by clicking on them and dragging.  You can also open a form to edit the object's settings by double-clicking on the object, clicking Modify Selected Object in the Edit Menu, pressing the A key while the chart is selected or selecting from the Right-Click menu.  This form will allow you to exactly specify the object's end-points by entering their values or by clicking on the arrow buttons to the right of the text boxes (see picture below.)  Holding down the Ctrl key while clicking will allow fine adjustment and holding down the Shift key while clicking will allow coarse adjustment.

This form also allows you to change the colors and line settings of user-drawn objects.  For User-drawn Fibonacci Levels, this form allows you to choose whether to display the pivot lines, whether to place the level values on the left, middle or right of the level lines and the ability to invert the fib levels, i.e., swap the start and end points of your pivot line.  You can also independently specify line types for the pivot and fib lines.  For trendlines, you can specify whether the line should extend across the chart and the line styles for both the main and extended lines. 

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Deleting Objects  Once you have selected an object, you can delete it by pressing the Delete key, or by selecting Delete Selected Object from the Edit menu, or by selecting Delete under Selected Object on the Right-Click menu.  You can also delete all objects of a certain kind, or delete completely all objects by selecting the appropriate item under the Edit menu.  Finally, you can delete the last-drawn object without entering Selection Mode, by pressing the delete key in combination with the key used to draw the object.  So for lines, just press the Delete key, for Circles press Alt and the Delete key, for Fibonacci levels press Ctrl and the Delete key. and for Fibonacci spirals, press the Ctrl, Shift  and Delete keys 

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Saving Objects  A collection of user-drawn objects can be saved by selecting Save chart objects from the File or Right-Click menu, or by pressing the V key.  You can then load these objects using Load chart object file from the same menus or by pressing the L key.

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Duplicating Objects  You can duplicate the currently-selected object by select Duplicate Selected Object from the Edit or Right-Click menus, or by pressing Ctrl-C.

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Scaling Conversion  User-drawn lines first drawn on a chart with linear (arithmetic) scaling, will be correctly redrawn when displayed on a chart with logarithmic scaling and vice versa.  This prevents confusion when switching from one scaling type to another.  For example, the first chart below shows two trendlines drawn on a chart with logarithmic scaling, and the second chart shows the same lines displayed on a chart with arithmetic scaling.