microcharts in thinkorswim

facebook post:

this is very funny !!! websites and businesses usually compete to offer the best services and technology to their users. but the financial world is going the opposite direction. the big guys in wall street have finally woken up to my strategy which i wrote in my blog. to go to my blog, just append .com to the following: ian-crystal.blogspot. the big guys realized an average individual investor can EASILY beat their performance. so they keep removing the key features or tools in their websites that is essential to my strategy. what's really funny is there are many pajama traders like me who also discovered my strategy on their own and are complaining in reddit why the tools are being taken down FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. it only proves we were not just lucky. our strategy really works and is lethal to the big guys. it also proves there is a kabal or conspirancy because the features and tools are taken down in all the other brokerage firms and websites. HAHAHAHAHAHA !!! first they removed the ability to display 100 small charts in yahoo all at once which you can just scroll down. then they removed the microcharts feature in ameritrade/schwab. but too bad for them i found a way in thinkorswim to simulate microcharts. the setup is very tedious but you only need to do it once. just click "microcharts-in-thinkorswim" in the table of contents of my blog to follow it. unfortunately for the big guys, they can't destroy this feature because it will destroy the essential functionality of their website. because it's not really a feature. it's a collection of many features and each feature is essential to their website. CHECK MATE !!!

STEPS TO SIMULATE MICROCHARTS IN THINKORSWIM:

(just ignore the color link feature because it's used to cycle through a watchlist on 1 chart display. so it's a many-to-one feature and what we want is many-to-many or 1 chart per watchlist item) 

note there are 2 upper toolbars: support and setup toolbar and tabs toolbar

- click "charts" in the tabs toolbar then click charts in the toolbar below the tabs toolbar

- make sure ondemand is disabled by making sure it's in the rightmost end of the tabs toolbar. if it's near the middle, it's enabled. just click on it to disable it.

- at the rightmost end of the chart toolbar is the "chart actions" icon button. we'll just name it "chart actions". next to it is the "grid" icon button. we'll just name it "grid".

- click "chart actions/reset". there should be a 4th toolbar below the charts toolbar. let's call this the symbols toolbar. at the rightmost end of the symbols toolbar is the "symbol actions" icon button. we'll just name it "symbol actions".

- enter any stock symbol in the upper left corner (e.g. nvda)

create and save the different chart styles (time period):

- click "symbol actions/style/settings

   - time-axis tab: choose 5 days (1 hour aggregation period) 

   - appearance tab/chart type = line

   - uncheck all checkboxes in all the tabs in "chart settings" especially equities tab (this removes all annoying chart markers) except the "appearance/grid"

   - make sure the "appearance/grid" checkbox is checked

   - click ok

- click "symbol actions/style/set chart default", then (click yes)

- click "symbol actions/style/save style" then enter the name depending on duration (e.g. "clean 5-day chart"

- repeat the following for 1 month, 6 months, and  5 years:

        - click "symbol actions/style/settings

        - set time-axis tab: duration period: 1 month (day aggregation period) / 6 months (day aggregation period) / 5 years (month aggregation period)

        - click "symbol actions/style/save style" then enter  name (e.g. clean 1 month)

create and save the watchlists

- go to watchlist on the left subwindow. if no left subwindow, click the middle of the left edge of the main window. 

- if no watchlist gadget, click the + button in the bottom of the left subwindow and add the watchlist gadget

- you can remove and add any gadget you want in the left pane 

- to add a watchlist, click the middle button of the top watchlist gadget toolbar and choose "create watchlist". note the first input box is for the name, not the symbols. this really screwed me because the box is strangely very long. enter the name you want and then click import. 

- you can then copy the list of stocks to the clipboard then click "paste symbols from clipboard". it took me a month to get this to work. as it turns out, the problem was that the symbols need to be in ALL CAPS but my symbols were in lower caps. this is very stupid because there is no reason why they can't just make it case insensitive. note the symbols can be separated by newline, comma, space, or semi-colon. 

- if you have a fideliy account, you can click the download button in upper right corner of portfolio view. then open the file from excel or wps so you can copy the symbol column to clipboard (in excel, you first need to open an empty workbook then click "data/from text" to open the csv file then set the delimiter to comma). make sure to delete any heading or cash/money market rows so they don't get included.

- we will be choosing the 7 X 4 grid, which means each watchlist cannot be more than 28 stocks.

- so if you want to look at the charts of more than 28 stocks, you will need to break it up. example, my watchlists from my fidelity IRA are ira1, ira2, and ira3. always add SPY in the beginning so it's actually 27 stocks maximum per list.

- click save

- if not yet done do the following:

     - right click the watchlist headers bar and choose "customize"

     - remove and add such that you get the following headers in order: last, %change, %change 5 days, %change 1 month, %change 6 months, market cap M, div yield current, company name

create and save the 7 X 4 grids for the different time frames (5 day, 1 month, 6 months, 5 years)

- click "chart actions/reset".

- enter any stock symbol in the upper left corner (e.g. nvda)

do the following for the 5 day, 1 month, 6 months, and 5 year charts:

- click "symbol actions/style/load style/<name of saved style>

- click "symbol actions/style/set chart default" and click yes

- click the "grid" button (next to chart actions button). there should be 27 squares. click the last square (bottom right)

- click chart actions/clear symbols

- click "grid/save grid as" then enter the name (e.g. 5 day empty, 1 month empty, 6 months empty, 5 years empty)

displaying the charts

- click "grid/<name of grid> 

- click chart actions/load symbols to cells/personal/<watch list name>

- to make the micro-charts bigger, collapse the left and bottom subwindows (click the middle of the right edge and click the "down arrow" button in the upper left corner of each BOTTOM subwindow    

- also make sure the "show sidebar in cells" is unchecked in the grid menu

- just have 1 chart grid at a time or the system will hang. but if you want to open more than 1 chart grid, click the "chart actions/detach". you will need to remove the sidebars again by unchecking "show sidebar in cells" in the grid menu.

- you can actually increase the grid size (e.g. 8 X 5 = 40 cells) by choosing the "flexible grid" tab instead of charts. just keep splitting the windows horizontally and vertically until you get the desired grid. to remove the splitter toolbar in each cell, click "show grid actions/customize grid" (click it again to show the toolbar). 

- if the "symbol actions" button is not visible drag the right edge of any cell a little bit to the right so it becomes visible.

(for more of my knowledge bombs, click the "ian's knowledge bombs" banner at the top of this article and choose any article in the table of contents that piques your interest)