What would a PC program do that a charting service doesn ?
Programs provide a wide range of technical analysis computations in addition to moving averages. RSI, MACD, Stochastics, etc., are routinely included. See Murphy’s book [Ref 1] for definitions. Frequently you can change the length of the moving averages or other parameters. As another example, AIQ StockExpert provides an “expert rating” suggesting purchase or short depending on the rating. Intermediate values of the rating are less conclusive. • What does a charting service do that a PC doesn’t? Charts generally contain a fair amount of fundamental information such as sales, dividends, prior growth rates, institutional ownership. • Can I draw my own charts? Of course. For example, if you only want to follow a handful of mutual funds of stocks, charting on a weekly basis is easy enough. EMAs are also easy enough to compute, but will take a while to overcome the lack of a suitable starting value. • What about wedges, exhaustion gaps, breakaway gaps, coils, saucer bottoms, and all those o