Adjusting Chart Scales

The next setting you can customize on your Yahoo! Finance Charts is the CHART SCALE. You can choose between two methods of scaling when you look at your charts. The default setting on your Yahoo! Finance Charts is a LINEAR scale, but you can also choose to view your chart with a LOGARITHMIC scale. The scale you choose will affect the Y-axis on your charts.

To change your settings, place your cursor above the CHART SETTINGS button. Once the menu appears, move your cursor down to the CHART SCALE, and hover above it until another menu appears. On this menu, the setting you currently have selected will have a check mark next to it. To change your setting, you simply have to click on the setting you want to enable. This will move the check mark and change your chart.

LINEAR scales are dollar based. For instance, if you are looking at the bottom of the chart, and a distance of one inch represents a $10 price movement, a one-inch area at the top of the chart will also represent a $10 price movement. Regardless of where you are on the chart, the same distance represents each dollar movement.

LOGARITHMIC scales are percentage based. For instance, if you are looking at the bottom of the chart, and a distance of one inch represents a 10-percent price movement, a one-inch area at the top of the chart will also represent a 10-percent price movement—although that price movement will be a larger dollar amount than the price movement at the bottom of the chart.

Here’s an example. If you change the ExxonMobil chart from a LINEAR scale to a LOGARITHMIC scale, you will notice that the distance between $58 and $56 is wider than the distance between $64 and $62. This is because distance on a LOGARITHMIC scale represents percentage movement and $2 when compared to $56 is a larger percentage than that same $2 when compared to $62.

The last setting your can customize on your Yahoo! Finance Charts is the TRACK BALL function. The default setting on your charts has this function to be selected. However, if you do not want the TRACK BALLS to follow your cursor as you move it around the chart, you can turn this function off.

To change your settings, place your cursor above the CHART SETTINGS button. Once the menu appears, move your cursor down to the TRACK BALL option. If this function is currently enabled, it will have a check mark next to it. To disable this setting, you simply have to click on it. This will remove the check mark.

Now that you're finished reading the text version of this tutorial, watch the video.

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