January 16, 2008
The Best Free Web-based Stock Charts
I scoured the internet for the best free web-based stock charts; here are the results ranked by my preference:
- Yahoo! Finance Charts (BETA)
- Quote.com Interactive Charts (BETA)
- Bloomberg Charts
- BigCharts Interactive Chart
- Prophet JavaCharts
- Google Finance
Super-fast Flash. Defaults to a one year line chart, but OHLC and Candlesticks also available. 13 technical studies available with customizable parameters. One click to change time intervals (1 day, 5 day, YTD, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, Max), which is very nice, and customizable time range also available, great! Defaults to log scaling, excellent, though linear scaling also available (who needs it?). Crosshairs or trackball for the cursor, nice. Able to compare performance of multiple symbols on a single chart, and Yahoo even suggests competitors and indexes for one click performance comparisons, very very nice.
Draws a clean intraday 5-minute (5 day) and 1-minute (1 day) chart. Lovely.
Only quibble is bars draw to the hard right edge of the chart. I recommend that Yahoo insert an X-bar gap on the right edge of the price chart to perfect them.
These new flash-based charts from Yahoo are the best free stock charts on the web in my opinion. When I’m not sitting at the Bloomberg terminal or using Metastock at home, these are the charts I use.
Flash. Yahoo copycat? Defaults to line chart but five chart types and 13 technical studies with customizable parameters available. Canned time intervals from 1 day to “Max,” but sliding time-axis, like Google’s, is nice. Able to compare performance of multiple symbols on a single chart, very nice. Crosshairs don’t appear to work?
It’s Flash which means it’s quick. Only OHLC and Line chart types and only six technical studies available. Nine canned time ranges: 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and year-to-date. No customizable time range available. Price doesn’t draw to the hard right edge, which is nice, but intraday charting horrible, and the one week chart is also more or less useless. Backed by Bloomberg data and the chart is clean and basic so I like it, but it sure ain’t Yahoo!
A Java applet that allows you to draw lines on the chart (nice!). The three panes “Lower Indicators,” are fixed in place and there’s no way to get rid of them. Interesting indicators include P/E Ratio, Yield, TRIN, etc.
Java applet. Able to detach or “pop-out” charting applet, very nice; blinking embedded ad, not nice. “Opening connection to server…” slow when chart needs to re-draw. Lots of studies available, but using this reminds me how superior the new Flash charts are.
Hate to say it because Google does so much right, but the charts at Google Finance suck. The only chart type available is the line/area chart and there are *no* technical studies available, not even a moving average. The “News Flags” are neat, but they should be defaulted “off” not “on.” Anyone at Google who wants to ask me how to improve the charting applet should know my hourly consultation rate is $850. :)
The following sites, listed alphabetically, draw static charts:
- BarCharts (dreaded pop-up ads? and hokey faux graph paper background make this one a last choice)
- BigCharts QuickCharts (around (and unchanged) for ages)
- ClearStation (when did E*Trade buy these guys? during the bubble?)
- iq |chart (blessedly ad-free)
- Prophet SnapCharts
- StockCharts.com (Default chart is cluttered with technical studies; volume and price panes are merged which looks awful)
- Yahoo! Basic Chart
What do you think are the best free web-based stock charts?
Related:
Why Google Finance Makes Me Sad, by Jeremy Zawodny
Google Finance, by Bill Bishop
January 16th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I like stockcharts. The only other one I use is Yahoo Basic charts which I use for quick long term charts and non-US stocks. Otherwise I use charts from my brokers. I hate the Yahoo beta charts.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
moom: Very interesting. I too was a Yahoo Basic Charts guy and at first balked at the new Flash charts, but I’ve since come around and now I never use Basic Charts… odd, no? Thanks for your comment.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I personally used BigCharts, and now, prefer StockCharts.
BigCharts offers a very huge chart, which makes glancing thru the chart not so eye taxing. The reason i switched over to StockCharts is the flexibility there that allows user to switch/adjust the sensitivity of each of its indicators. That is really a very cool thing, which is hardly seen in many free charting website. :)
January 16th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
lionel: Yes, I agree having a monster-sized chart to look at is nice. The “Big” static chart at BigCharts is 1045 x 635. “Landscape” at StockCharts is 850 x 668. Do you pay for StockCharts or just use it for free?
January 16th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
CM: Hahahaha. Damn cool just starting at the 1-inch candles :P
The free one. The free one does allow tweaking the sensitivity of the indicators, overlays, and all the other settings. It’s really cool. Try it ;)
January 16th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
lionel: I tried it but I don’t use many technical indicators anyway and I get tired of changing all the values and re-drawing the chart. I’m a lazy old man. :)
January 16th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
CM: Oh there is actually a trick of storing your settings :P Hehehehehe.
Here’s it. 1st of all, u tweak and adjust all the settings that u need. Once u have all your preferred setting properly set, click on the ‘Linkable Version’ right beneath the chart. This will bring up the exact same page, only that the url shown is a static link. Now, book mark this particular page, and save it in your bookmark. Viola !!!!
The next time, just click on this link from your bookmark, and u get all the same exact setting that u left behind. :)
Got it? :)
January 16th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
What about point and figure charts? I find these only on stockcharts.com
January 16th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
George: An excellent point! I rarely look at P&F charts, but if I did I think stockcharts.com is one of the only places to find them free on the Web.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Dude, Stockcharts.com is the best. I looked at all of the others but found stockcharts the most adaptable and reliable and accurate. The default chart is irrelevant - it can be customised exactly how you want it.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Rod: Yes, dude, but every time I visit the site I have to customize the chart once again which is a pain. I much prefer the dynamic charts to the static ones.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
You dont have to customise it if you are a member of the site (but then I guess it is not free). I have traded real money end-of-day from Stockcharts for 4 years with no problems.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Rod: Right, free is key. Customizing the defaults is a clever way to get people to join the site, for sure.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I’ve bookmarked the charts exactly the way I like them. Then all I need to do when I go there is change the ticker symbol.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
moom: That’s a smart solution (you cheap bastard). :)
January 16th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
lionel: Sorry, your comment about bookmarking the linkable chart got caught in the spam filter. You are a cheap guy, like moom. :)
January 16th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I use Yahoo Basic for a quick look, Prophet Java for flexible intraday (don’t think any of the others have that) and StockCharts for Perf charts (again, don’t know anywhere else you can find it for free online). Google’s charts are useless, and have been like that since they were launched in 2006!
January 16th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
eyal: What do you mean by “flexible intraday?” Let me look at what a Perf chart is. Yes, it’s sad Google dropped the ball so badly on the charts because if they had a killer charting app I’d drop Yahoo in a New York minute.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Flexible intraday - various time intervals and 20 days of data. PerfCharts is what StockCharts call their relative performance charts.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
eyal: Ah, I see. 20 days of intraday data is unusual, thanks for pointing it out.
I know a lot of people love StockCharts.com and I can understand why, but darn it, I want to be able to put crosshairs on the chart and look at things bar to bar.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
One of the very nice features of the Yahoo charts is the historical aspect where you can isolate a chart for any given period of time. That said, I prefer the look of the stockcharts.com site. The Yahoo charts are too wide, kind of squatty, if that makes any sense.
Like moom, I also have been bookmarking for quite some time the features I use for stockcharts as well as Bigcharts.
Since I don’t subscribe to any charting services other than what I get at IBD, I copy to paint brush and then am able to draw trendlines and annotate, if necessary.
This is a good discussion. Probably more relevant than the one on shaving. Speaking of which, who in the world has time to dry their razor? :)
January 16th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
http://www.tradesignalonline.com/default.aspx#English
best site i know for charting
January 16th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
…but the handling is lousy nowadays…in fomer times, the had a “chart gallery” where you could flip through all stocks for exampple the NDX in an hurry on a customized chart layout
January 17th, 2008 at 12:01 am
www.prorealtime.com is like prophet net java charts gold plan but end of day only - for free!!! i.e. storing fibs, comments on the charts, any number of watchlists, etc. only available with prophet gold plan. have been using for a month and love it - very fast too. you can also pay for real time data if you want. very easy to use, having tried prophet too. Tim K wil l have to look out when word gets out…
advfn.com can do similar with much wider international access but is plagued by awful flashing ads and pop ups, and very slow (at least the free version).
January 17th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Just to add a not yet obvious point here. Microsoft’s new Silverlight plugin has the potential to remake things like online charting. (If they don’t drop the ball) It may take some time to get rolling.
1.) Flash and Java based charts offer the only real time access to database data right now.
2.) The whole financial world speaks Excel.
3.) Microsoft controls Excel.
4.) The lines between “web” and “desktop” will become increasingly blurred. Developers (hordes of existing C and VB programmers as opposed to Adobe Flex. Java and C# are very similar.) can now use their skills to process and display data on the web in the same fashion as they did for desktop apps.
5.) Visual Studio is a very mature development environment with a very large base of users. A programmer can build a complete system from database to html with everything in between in VS.
6.) By running the executables on the server it will be possible to display very intensive calculations on mobile platforms.
My guess is the web will be a lot different in 5 years, especially financial sites. Imagine TradeStation as a web based platform :)
January 17th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Thanks for the survey!.Seeing all the screenshots on your blog I thought were using Bloomberg Professional….
I still haven’t decided which one I like best; I am only sure that I hate another Java application running.
But….I really do not understand your complaints about popups and ads. Just use Firefo x+ “Adblock Plus” + “Flashblock” or Internet Explorer with “IE7pro”. No ads, no popups. (I think popups are disabled by default in Firefox, anyway.)
And, btw. :hxxp://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp has realtime quotes now (but I haven’t tried charts yet); and with “Tab Mix Plus” it should be possible to autorefresh these pages.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:42 am
and I forgot: in barchart.com, which is 100% clean and very fast in FF+Adblock, you can choose “custom chart” which appears on the lower right edge of the chart. Then you can take away the green small grid an get a white chart with a bigger black grid. Save the link to save your settings; after that only change the stock symbol.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am
CM: Hahahahah. Yeah. We are cheap bastards :P
Btw, Google has it’s pros too on it’s chart. Whenever i want to look for the reason of why a particular stock dip/spike significantly on a specific day, I’ll turn on the google chart. The good thing about it is, any news/events that fall on that day will be displayed as an icon above that particular day of that chart. Click on the icon, and u get the new. Sweet and very easy. Hassle free :)
January 17th, 2008 at 10:19 am
@Todd: I know what you’re saying about the Yahoo charts being “squatty” but I’ve gotten used to it. I have time to dry my razor which is a much more productive use of time than, say, blogging.
@Peter: Thanks for the link but it doesn’t seem to open for me at the moment. :)
@nick: Looks like prorealtime is member based which means it isn’t free which means it doesn’t qualify. advfn.com is unspeakably awful.
@Donk: Microsoft? I can imagine TradeStation as a web-based platform and look forward to the day when all applications are web-based.
@jjooey: I use Firefox with AdBlock at home of course but the work computers (and coffee shops, etc.) are all InternetExplorer-only. IE blocks pop-ups but you still get that warning that something popped-up and was blocked. Thanks for the tip on barchart’s custom chart, didn’t see that.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I think Google’s strategy is free realtime charting. it seems ugly and useless at current stage. Representing data is a piece of cake for them, they are not copy cat like other charting websites, believe me something is cooking in the pot, it will change the way investors manage their portfolio. The same story will be repeated, new ideas will come from them, the others will play catch up again.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Yang: I hope you’re right but they’re surely taking their sweet time about it.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:45 am
you can shutoff the volume overlay on stockcharts.com and remove any indicator or indicator pane you do not want to see. When it’s bare, you only have prices - I think it’s the best for static charts. To me, the only real downside to the free version is that you can’t view a specific historical period - it’s always upto the current date and it doesn’t have the huge symbol list that Yahoo does.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Not true -you can view any historical period you like but a maximum of three years of data on the free version.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:55 am
moom: Yes, but we’re focusing on the free version exclusively… offering only three years of data is another good incentive to join the site; those guys are smart marketers.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
You can see any period on the free version.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
re www.prorealtime.com - no, it is free for EOD data, only need to pay for real time. No different from prophet and tradesignal in that regard.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
@moom: I think LM meant any period, not limited by a three year lookback.
@nick: You have to *Register* to view the EOD version. That makes it not free in my book, unlike prophet and every other one I linked to.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Tim Knight at the Slope of Hope has some of the worst looking charts you’ll ever see, but he has made insane returns over the past few months shorting everything in sight. Too bad he’s such an obnoxious douche bag, but it’s hard to argue with his results.
So ugly charts are not necessarily the problem.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
umm you can look at say the 1987 crash:
You can’t do that with my brokers.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
@contracan: Some people (ok, most people) think I’m a jerk and I’ve been losing money hand over fist for months now… but my charts will always be the prettiest out there. :)
@moom: I stand corrected.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Since you asked
I like it because it’s good for a quick scan with just enough of the indicators as I need. It has intraday as well as comparison features.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:43 am
I always use bigcharts. They have a great feature in the interactive charts option -> indicators, where you can add rolling eps, rolling dividend, pe ratio, and dividend yield. Very useful for long term investing (thought the data isn’t always right. I double check it if I’m serious about a stock).
Bigcharts is also great for historical studies, ie if you want to quickly see what a certain stock did from 1992-1993, just go to the custom date field.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:58 am
nothing comes close to StockCharts.com… best look, best/most features/configurability…
January 18th, 2008 at 7:16 am
@jp: Thanks for the link, that’s a prettied up interface for BigCharts, I like it.
@v838: I agree you can draw some very nice static charts at StockCharts but I have a deep need to throw crosshairs on the bars and take a look at things bar to bar, if you know what I mean.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
free/realtime/streaming (but not for serious charting)
..for intraday realtime quotes and simple intraday realtime charts: moneycentral.msn.com (you have to register). Autorefresh the quotes and charts with “Tab Mix Plus”.
…for intraday realtime streaming charts of US-Indices: go.to/bluejack (…which streams quotedotcom)
January 19th, 2008 at 12:01 am
EOD charting + scanner/screener
mentioned before, take a look at prorealtime.com (yes, you have to register, but no real address, credit card or so necessary). It’s major advantage is the programmable scanner. As it is used by “CMC markets” there seem to be quite a lot of people in Germany and UK programming their own indicators for it.
————-
Other well known free services, more about “quoting” than “charting”: quotetracker.com and for FX metatrader.com
January 20th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
there seems to be a great new site much like quotetracker thats furnished with all sorts of broker data…..its http://www.esignal.com/quotetrader/
only thing is i cant get it to work with IB withch is my broker :)
January 20th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
koain: Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. It’s not web-based so I can’t include it in the main list. And are they asking me for me credit card number in the registration process? Why?
January 20th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
koain, I was able to get quotetrader to work with IB but it was a pain to set up and I found it a little too “crunchy” for my taste. I’m probably just too used to using quotetracker, the swiss army knife of day trading.
A pity that quotetracker (the original product) and quotetrader (a johnny-come-lately) have such similar names.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:38 am
Steve: What do you mean by “crunchy?” Did you have to give them credit card info to download quotetrader? Do you need an activation code to make the software work?
January 21st, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Since we’re discussing charts and it’s a timely discussion, has anyone who uses Yahoo beta charts had Classic charts restored as the default chart preference? This just happened, both in Firefox and Explorer, and I can’t figure out why - or how to fix it.
Btw, I like Yahoo’s beta charts for the abiltiy to quickly isolate time periods (perhaps more interesting than useful) and Bigcharts for the ability to save a default setting (for me it’s 5 years with rolling EPS and P/E as lower indicators).
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:21 am
the website says free mao….doesnt ask for any info
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:23 am
QuoteTrader is completely FREE — no datafeed charges, no additional exchange fees — QuoteTrader uses the data provided by your broker.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:26 am
like medved quotetracker its powered by ur brokers quotes….I’d stay to quotetracker if he’d only design a datawindow the lind that qcharts has. he keeps saying its on the drawingboard but never does it LOL
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:20 am
koain: I know what the Quotetrader site says but did you actually go through the registration process, download it and try it?
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
i downloaded it but cant get it ti run using IB….didnt ask me for any personal info as I recall…..i never give those websites my real name and such anyways LOL
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
koain: It looked like there was a tab as part of the registration process that asked for credit card info but I didn’t get that far and you can’t remember so we’ll have to wait for someone else to chime in on the matter.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Is there any website that gives you a nice chart with relative strength relative to an index and the options implied volatility? I think that would be very helpful?
Steve
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Steve: You can do ratio charts at stockcharts.com … I’m not sure what you mean about the options implied volatility… do you want to plot the implied volatility of a certain option together with the underlying stock?
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 pm
yes, other than Ivolatility.com, I have not found a good charting package that “graphs” the implied volatilty.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Also, I would like to run searchs on “low” and “high” implied volatility, is Ivol the only place does gives that type of insight?
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Steve: Yeah, that’s a pretty special thing to plot and probably not of interest to the masses.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
thanks.
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Which site is most capable for showing configurable charts (let’s say 100 companies)? Is there any site that allows you to change the currency to EUR, JPY and GBP?
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 am
Steve, open an account with IB, TOS or any other broker with an options platform that provides vol charts.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 am
Steve: I had to rescue a couple of your comments from the spam filter… if you post too many too quickly the filter will give you the smackdown.
I don’t think there’s any site out there that lets you currency-adjust the charts (which is a wonderful feature on the Bloomberg).
January 27th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Where can I find the historical intraday charts? Not just a OHLC of a day but the whole flow of a day in 5, 10, 15 or 30 min intervals (whichever is available). I am interested in last year’s data.