Shares: Chronology

Buy on the rumour, Sell on the News

This type of chart lets you zoom in to look with great magnification at the financial history of any market over any period in the past quarter of a century. Its main purpose is to show the significance of key events that do not lend themselves to systematic analysis. This type does not include a Best Guess. The dates of important events straddle the index at the time and place where they occurred and a news headline is shown alongside. The selection includes key economic, political, international and market specific events. These charts are much larger - around twice the width and three times the length - to make room for the news headlines.

Because these charts extend well beyond the edges of the page, it is necessary to use the scroll bars on the right and at the bottom of the main window to locate the period of interest. If no data is immediately visible, scroll down till the series appears. 

In each chart the stock market index is shown by the bold white line , the explanatory variables, in this case news headlines, are shown in yellow text and the dates are bright green. The month / year divider marks the precise point at which each event took place. Common Problems describes the browser features for exposing a larger part of this chart on your screen.

In the interests of brevity, initials often replace full names. If these are unfamiliar to you, explanations can be found in Alphabet Soup.

There are several ways to compensate for losing visibility of the axes. Firstly to compensate for the timescale at the bottom, the key dates appear in the plot area at the point where they occur.  Secondly the use of log scales makes it unnecessary to see the value axes, because the vertical distance between any two points in the chart reflects the same percentage movement, whatever the index level. Furthermore the log scale is the same across all charts of this type. (See GuideBook for further explanation.) The values are in any event indicative only, as each stock market index has been rebased individually in this type of chart. However, because of the relatively small percentage movements, the Global investment perspective is shown using the same linear value scales as in other types of chart. These can be seen by scrolling to either the left or right sides of the chart.

In order to provide the maximum possible magnification, the treatment of time periods is also different. Instead of the normal medium and long-term timescales, there are two cosecutive periods, of which the former covers the earlier part of the long timescale period and the latter corresponds to the same timescale as the Decade in other types of chart. The Zoom facility in IE5 is especially useful here.

In respect of the earlier period, it has not been feasible to construct a meaningful chart for some emerging markets owing to exchange controls, hyperinflation or simply a lack of data.

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