As I see it, getting a Slope membership is kind of like buying a stock. First, it tends to go up in price (I’ve increased prices on four separate occasions). Second, what you get for what you are paying tends to increase over time, even though you’re not paying more than you were beforehand. This latest improvement is an example of the latter.
In that light, I am pleased pleased to introduce Slope’s latest innovation, the Seismograph, available to all paying members.
You access this from SlopeCharts, by way of the Mode menu.
What the Seismograph represents is the historical percentage change, on a day by day basis, over the entire history we have for whatever it is you are charting. You can point to any day and see what the change was, either up or down. More important, we calculate the first and standard deviation for the data set. Changes within one deviation are green; between one and two deviations are orange; past two deviations are shown in red. If you prefer just one color, you can uncheck the “Color Bars”: checkbox.
As with normal SlopeCharts, you can zoom in to any portion with a swipe, and pointing at any bar will make it glow and make detail at the bar show up at the top.
At a glance, you can grasp the entire history of the dynamism of any given financial instrument. Visually, the changes in amplitude and the trio of color bars give you an instant sense as to the historical nature of what it is you are observing.
One example is shown below, the Treasury Bond fund, symbol TLT. For the decade of the 2010s, it was an especially mild financial instrument, with year after year of virtually uninterrupted green bars. In March of 2020, however, the amplitude expanded dramatically and a dense zone of red bars appeared.
We are providing more and more ways to get insight into what the financial markets are doing. If you haven’t done so already, consider joining the many other Slopers who have taken the leap into a paying membership, and start exploring this latest enhancement.
