Investment Security Graphing Capabilities

Jeff Mattson

Quicken already has investment security graphing capabilities that are very helpful, but can be improved to help users visualize their activities by providing two additional features.

1. Change scale of "Y" axis to reflect the pricing data range Minimum to Maximum for better amplitude resolution. Assuming zero for the "Y" axis minimum, distorts the amplitude of change when security prices gets larger in value or does not change as much over time (graph looks flat or unchanged). The suggestion would be to take the minimum pricing data point for a given time range and round down to the nearest 100, 10, or 1 whichever is most applicable for the data set. For maximum axis ranges round the maximum data point up to the nearest 100 , 10, or 1, as appropriate (which is what the graph already does). The purpose is to improve graphical visualization of changes in the data range over the time period selected. Keeping the activity feature is helpful for user visualization of pricing data relative to buy and sell activities. Also corresponds to suggestion #2 below.
2. The graph has the ability to pick a point to show the pricing/volume data for the selected security. But modify the selection to include both a vertical line (date line equal to "Y" axis length) and a horizontal line (price data point equal to "X" axis length) from the pricing (and date) data point selected. The purpose of the horizontal line it to help users visualize gains and losses relative to their activities more easily. This would help investors better understand their investing decisions for learning and improving security activity choices.