 Adjusting
Chart Time Ranges
Watch the 
video
tutorialOnce you have determined what chart type you want to use in your investing, you need to determine what charting time range you are going to use on your Yahoo! Finance Charts. Longer-term investors tend to lean toward longer-term time ranges on their charts. Shorter-term investors tend to lean toward shorter-term time ranges on their charts. On
your Yahoo! Finance Chart, you can choose among nine predetermined time ranges—1 DAY, 5 DAYS, 1 MONTH, 3 MONTHS, 6 MONTHS, 1 YEAR, 2 YEARS, 5 YEARS and MAX—or you can customize your time range using the interactive TIME RANGE in the lower right corner of the chart. 
To
toggle back and forth among the predetermined time ranges, simply click on the appropriate button along the bottom of the chart. For example, if you wanted to see how ExxonMobil was performing today, you could click on the 1 DAY button and see the intraday price movement of the stock. If you wanted to see how the company has performed during the past few years to help you determine if you wanted to place a longer-term trade on the stock, you could click on the 5 YEARS button and see the price movement of the stock for the past five years. For
a more interactive and customizable experience, you can use the TIME RANGE feature. To activate this feature, place your cursor over the TIME RANGE link. As you do so, a HISTORICAL TREND of the stock will appear. At a glance, the HISTORICAL TREND allows you to see the price action of the stock as far back as your Yahoo! Finance Charts have data. This graphical time-range control allows you to customize the length of time and the beginning and ending dates you wish to see displayed on the chart. 
As
you look across the HISTORICAL TREND, you will see an interactive slider highlighted in blue. If you are currently looking at a 1-year chart, this slider will also span one year. If you are looking at a 5-year chart, this slider will also span five years. However, the slider is adjustable. You can both move the slider to cover a different segment of time and expand the slider to cover a broader range of time. 
To
move the slider, place your cursor above the slider and click and hold when you see your cursor change into a hand icon. You can now move the slider back and forth across the HISTORICAL TREND. As you move the slider back and forth, you will not see any change on the chart above until you release your cursor. Once you have released your cursor, the chart will automatically update. 
To
expand the slider, place your cursor above one of the arrows attached to the slider and click and hold when you see your cursor change into a hand icon. You can now drag one side of the slider back and forth to increase or decrease the width of the slider along the HISTORICAL TREND. Once again, as you are expanding and contracting the slider, you will not see any change on the chart above until you release your cursor. Once you have released your cursor, the chart will automatically update.
Lastly,
if you have a specific time range you want to view on your chart, you can manually enter the beginning date and the ending date of your desired time range in the lower right corner of the page. To make the change, place your cursor over the time range field and click once. This will enable editing within the field. The first thing you will notice is the format for the dates changes from “Jan 1, 2006” to “1/1/2006.” When you enter the dates you would like to see in your personalized time range, you need to use the second format. For instance, if you would like your time range to span from January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2006, you should enter “1/1/2005 – 1/1/2006.” If you try to enter “Jan 1, 2005 – Jan 1, 2006” or “1/1/05 – 1/1/06,” the chart will not recognize your changes. You must follow the format precisely.
Now
that you're finished reading the text version of this tutorial, watch the
video. Next
tutorial: Adjusting
Chart Line Types Back to the Yahoo!
Finance Charts User Guide Index |
