ChartWatchers

SINGING IN THE (TICKER) RAIN

Chip Anderson

Chip Anderson

President, StockCharts.com

Just what you wanted right? Actually, this is the "Ticker Rain" that we talked about in the last newsletter. It is finally up on our website at http://stockcharts.com/charts/tickerrain.html. What is "Ticker Rain" you ask? It's a Java program that creates a chart which shows you many of the ticker symbols that are being requested by StockCharts.com users. The ticker symbols "rain" down the chart and stack up into columns. The taller the column, the more popular the ticker symbol. Up to 100 columns build up over time. You can click on any of the columns to see a SharpChart for that ticker symbol. Every 30 seconds, we remove whichever column has been inactive for the longest time and add a new ticker symbol on the right side of the chart. Over time, the more active columns collect on the left side of the chart.

You can use Ticker Rain to see which symbols are hot and whether people are looking at long-term or short-term charts of those symbols. It can help you see if there are any new trends in the market that you should be aware of.

Note: Ticker Rain only shows a small subset of the chart requests that we get. Ticker Rain also works better when the market is open - it can be slow on the weekends and late a night.

You kind of have to see Ticker Rain in action to fully understand it. First, make sure you have Java properly installed on your computer, then click here to start the rain!

Chip Anderson
About the author: is the founder and president of StockCharts.com. He founded the company after working as a Windows developer and corporate consultant at Microsoft from 1987 to 1997. Since 1999, Chip has guided the growth and development of StockCharts.com into a trusted financial enterprise and highly-valued resource in the industry. In this blog, Chip shares his tips and tricks on how to maximize the tools and resources available at StockCharts.com, and provides updates about new features or additions to the site. Learn More