StockCharts Blogs - ChartWatchers

SEATTLE SCU SEMINAR, VOTE FOR SEMINAR CITY #4, NEW eBOOKS

SEATTLE SCU SEMINAR ANNOUNCED! - Registration for our one-day Seattle SCU Seminar is now open.  If you are interested, you better register fast because this one is sure to sell out quickly.  Click here for more details including the seminar agenda.

LAST CHANCE TO VOTE FOR SCU SEMINAR CITY #4 - We're winding down the voting for which city we should hold our 4th SCU Seminar in this year. Currently Toronto is leading, followed closely by Dallas and San Francisco.  If you are interested in attending our one-day SCU Seminar series and you cannot make it to our LA, Seattle or NYC events, be sure to click on this link and vote for the city of your choice before the end of February.  We'll announce the winner in March!

JOSEPH MAJOCHA'S eBOOK "THE ART OF THE CHART" IS NOW ONLY $7.99 IN OUR STORE - Majocha's easy-to-read eBook teaches you the essential concepts of Technical Analysis using StockCharts.com tools and charts.  It can help anyone become a better, more organized investor and it is now only $7.99 as a PDF download in our online store.  Get your copy right now.

OH, AND DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER FOR SEATTLE CHARTCON 2012 - It's filling up fast!  Do not delay! Anyone who's a fan of StockCharts and this ChartWatchers newsletter really owes it to themselves to attend.  You'll meet all the ChartWatchers authors and see the Great Pacific Northwest at the absolutely best time of year.  Click here for details.

 

REGISTER FOR CHARTCON NOW TO GET EARLY-BIRD DISCOUNT

CHARTCON EARLY REGISTRATION DEADLINE FAST APPROACHING - Join us in Seattle this August for our second annual ChartCon conference.  Two days of presentations by John Murphy, Arthur Hill, Tom Bowley, Richard Rhodes and Carl Swenlin - basically all of the ChartWatchers columnists!  Last year's convention was a huge hit with everyone that attended - don't miss this year's event.  The cost is going up by $100 after January 31st so don't delay - CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND REGISTER TODAY!

GET THE DOWNLOAD VERSION OF OUR 100-YEAR NEW CENTURY WALL CHART - The printed version of this chart was such a huge hit we've created a downloadable PDF version that you can view on your computer or print out in any size you want.  Only $9.95!  Click here for details

SCTR LINE INDICATOR LETS YOU SEE HISTORICAL SCTR TRENDS - We've added the "SCTR Line" indicator to our SharpCharts charting tool so you can see how SCTR values have changed over time for a particular stock.  Just add it via one of the "Indicator" dropdowns on the SharpCharts workbench.

NEW eBOOK FROM ALEXANDER ELDER, EUROPEAN COVERAGE ENDING MARCH 1st

NEW eBOOK FROM ALEXANDER ELDER AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY FOR STOCKCHARTS USERS - Dr. Alexander Elder has just published a new eBook called "To Trade or Not to Trade, A Beginner's Guide".  It is now available for instant download in the StockCharts Store for only $8.00.  This version contains information that is specific to the use of StockCharts.com and is only available here.  Dr. Elder has written several classic books on how to trade succesfully including Come Into My Trading Room and Trading for a Living.  This latest eBook can help anyone become a better trader and may be the best $8 you ever spent.  Download your copy today.

COVERAGE OF EUROPEAN STOCKS AND INDEXES WILL END ON MARCH 1st - As Chip announced in his blog yesterday, we have not had enough demand for our European charting services - ExtraRT/EU and ExtraRT+ - to justify continuing them.  Unfortunately the high cost of that data combined with the low number of subscribers means that we have to discontinue coverage of all LSE, Euronext and German stocks and indexes after March 1st. Please read Chip's blog post for more details.

LOS ANGELES SCU SEMINAR ALMOST FULL - Only a couple of slots are still open for our first ever StockCharts University (SCU) Seminar at the Marina del Rey Marriott in sunny Los Angeles this March.  Have Chip Anderson show you how to use StockCharts to analyze the market and find great stocks.  Click here for more information.

CHARTCON 2012 EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION ENDS ON JANUARY 31st - Don't miss our biggest event of the year, ChartCon 2012 with John Murphy, Carl Swenlin, Arthur Hill, Tom Bowley and Richard Rhodes this August in Seattle.  Early Bird pricing is in effect only until the end of this month.  Don't delay!  Click here for more information including dates and the agenda.

HOLIDAY SALE ENDS MONDAY - SCTRs INVADE STOCKCHARTS HOMEPAGE, SCAN ENGINE

HOLIDAY SALE ENDS MONDAY - Our December Holiday Special ends on Monday, the 19th.  If you are a member, do yourself a favor and visit the Your Account page to see when your account expires.  If it expires anytime between now and June 2012, you should really consider renewing for 6 or 12 months right now.  Renew for 6 months and you'll get 1 additional month for free.  Renew for 12 months and you'll get 2 additional months for free.

Members: Click here and then click the yellow "Extend" button to get started.

Not a member yet?  Thinking about joining?  Join before Monday and you'll get the same deal as the members.  Click here to learn more.

 

SCTRs INVADE STOCKCHARTS HOMEPAGE, SCAN ENGINE - We are now posting top 10 and bottom 10 lists for our three most popular SCTRs on our homepage.  If you haven't heard yet, the "StockCharts Technical Ranks" are a new rating service we provide that assigns a number between 0 and 100 for each stock in a given group.  The higher then SCTR, the stronger the stock is technically.  For more info, please see our ChartSchool article.

Here's a easy way to see the value of SCTRs (pronounced "Scooters"):  Click on the "PerfChart" link in the S&P 500 SCTR area of our homepage.  You'll see the performance of the stocks with the Highest current SCTR rating on an interactive PerfChart.  Very cool!

By the way, SCTRs are now also integrated in with our Scan Engine.  Extra members can now add SCTR ratings to their scan criteria.  For example:

  [daily sctr.sp5 > 70] and [close > Upper BB(20,2)]

This scan will find all stocks in the S&P 500 with a SCTR rank above 70 that are also above their upper Bollinger Band.  Strong performers indeed!

 

UPCOMING CHANGES TO THE PUBLIC CHARTLIST REWARD SYSTEM - Starting on January 1st, we will be making some changes to how the Public ChartList reward system works.  As of January 1st, the following changes will occur:

• All current Hall of Fame designations will expire
• In order to earn Hall of Fame status, a Public ChartList must win the monthly voting contest 6 times and be approved by the StockCharts president.
• The winner of the montly voting contest will receive 1 free month of service.  2nd place will receive 2 free weeks, and 3rd place will receive one free week.

The goal of these changes is to ensure that the Hall of Fame designation remains meaningful to the people that are browsing the Public ChartList area.

 

"SCOOTERS" INVADE STOCKCHARTS!

ANNOUNCING SCTRs, AN IMPORTANT NEW TOOL FOR CHART WATCHERS - Stock ranking systems are nothing new.  Investors Business Daily has had their well-known RS Rank system in place for years.  Today, we are announcing our own stock ranking system called the StockCharts Technical Rank (SCTR) - "Scooters" for short.

Like all ranking systems, SCTRs take a predefined universe of stocks (initially the S&P 500) and calculate a score for each stock.  The stocks are then sorted based on that score and assigned a rank - a number between 0 an 100 based on their position in the sorted list.

SCTR scores are based exclusively on straightforward technical conditions championed by John Murphy in his books and presentations.  They were inspired by John's "10 Laws of Technical Trading" essay.  We'll have a ChartSchool article with the exact formula available in a week or so but essentially we are looking at 6-month performance, 20-day performance, distance from the 200-day moving average, distance from the 50-day moving average, the slope of the MACD histogram, and the RSI's value.  Each one of those factors is weighted based on John's opinion of its importance and then added together to achieve the final score for each stock.

At this point we are only creating SCTRs for just the S&P 500 stocks and presenting them in table format on this page.  We consider this to be a "Beta" test of sorts and would like feedback from everyone over the next couple of weeks about the rankings.  Do the stocks with a 90+ SCTR rank have "good looking" charts?   Do the stocks with low SCTR ranks have weak looking charts?  Are the stocks with large SCTR changes from the previous day deserving of those large changes?

Down the road, we intend to add SCTRs to a wide variety of things throughout the website including:

• Allowing members to see the SCTR tables update in real time during market hours
• Allowing members to use SCTRs in their custom scans
• Creating SCTR rankings for additional stock universes including Canadians stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds, Small Cap stocks and Mid Cap stocks
• Allowing members to add the SCTR line as an indicator on their charts
• Allowing members to use a MarketCarpet based on SCTR values

We hope you find SCTRs useful.  Please take a look at them and send us feedback about how you might use them once they are fully deployed.

DON'T MISS THE HOLIDAY SPECIALS FROM STOCKCHARTS.COM

SEND SOMEONE THE GIFT OF CHARTING WITH THE STOCKCHARTS HOLIDAY GIFT PACK! - We've bundled 6 months of our Extra service with one of John Murphy's best books, "The Visual Investor" and our exclusive 3-disc DVD set from this year's ChartCon conference. We also tossed in a logo baseball hat and travel mug. The price is only $99.95 - that's $120 less than normal! AND we'll wrap it all up an a nice box and send it to whomever you specify along with your personal note. That's one more item checked off your holiday shopping list thanks to StockCharts. What could be better?  But hurry - in order to get things shipped properly, this offer must end on December 8th. Click here for more details.

ANOTHER GREAT OFFER FROM S.R.C. AND STOCKCHARTS - Last week's big wall chart was so well received that we've improved on it for the holiday gift giving season!  Through this special offer with our partners at SRC. we have been able to combine the big 100-year wall chart of stock history with SRC's wonderful chart books - and do it at an 80% discount!   There are three different combinations of chart books to choose from - each a better deal than the last.  Check them out and order them for yourself or your charting friends.  But be sure to order before December 5th.  Click here for more details.

By the way, if you ordered a wall chart and haven't received it yet, don't panic.  Many people got their's in the mail on Friday and yours should arrive in the next couple of days.

DON'T FORGET US ON "CYBER MONDAY" - There's a very good chance we'll have some additional one-day deals then.  Check out the "What's New" section of the website on Monday, Nov. 28th for details.

A SPECIAL NOTE TO BASIC MEMBERS - Be sure to click on the "Members" tab the next time you log in to your Basic account for details on a very special offer.

UPCOMING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, PUBLIC CHARTLIST CONTEST CHANGES

GREG SCHNELL AND TOM BOWLEY IN CALGARY...  First off, Tom Boley and Greg Schnell - two of our great market commentators - are teaming up to talk in Calgary this week.  They have already presented there Saturday morning, but if you missed that presentation, they will also be presenting on Tuesday evening.  Click here for all the details.

CHIP ANDERSON AT THE AAII CONVENTION IN VEGAS...  Chip will be giving his talk on Friday afternoon at the AAII convention at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas.  If you are attending the convention, be sure to stop by and say Hi!  Here are the details.

UPCOMING CHANGES TO THE PUBLIC CHARTLIST REWARD SYSTEM - Starting on January 1st, we will be making some changes to how the Public ChartList reward system works.  As of January 1st, the following changes will occur:

• All current Hall of Fame designations will expire
• In order to earn Hall of Fame status, a Public ChartList must win the monthly voting contest 6 times and be approved by the StockCharts president.
• The winner of the montly voting contest will receive 1 free month of service.  2nd place will receive 2 free weeks, and 3rd place will receive one free week.

The goal of these changes is to ensure that the Hall of Fame designation remains meaningful to the people that are browsing the Public ChartList area.

 

STOCKCHARTS.COM DEALS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT

DEALS, DEALS, DEALS - Here is a list of all the ways you can save money at StockCharts.  Right now.  No waiting.  No hassel.  Real money.  Just do these things and start saving.

• Non-Members can subscribe to any of our charting services and get a 10-day free trial to test things out.
• Ex-Members can resubscribe to any of our charting services and get 10 additional days for free.
• All Members now get the "StockCharts Market Message with John Murphy" for free.
• Basic and Extra members get real-time data for US stocks without having to pay exchange fees.
• All Members get a special discount coupon that lets them save 10% off of any order from our online store.
• Any member that refers us to a non-member will get one month of free service if that non-member signs up.
• All members that have been with us for more than 12 months get a loyalty reward coupon that saves them money on their next renewal.
• All StockCharts members qualify for a free one-month trial of DecisionPoint.com.
• Extra members that publish a Public ChartList can win a free month of service if their list is the top vote getter for the month.
• The book bundles in our online store are offered at a h-u-g-e discount.
• Finally, all members that renew for 12 months will get another month of service for free.

Phew!  Did you know about all of that before now?

WHAT NON-MEMBERS NEED TO KNOW, WELCOME "THE CANADIAN TECHNICIAN!"

THINGS NON-MEMBERS ASK ABOUT - Yes, we do have monthly charts.   Yes, we do allow you to create charts that are longer than 3 years.  Yes, you can see the data that makes up each chart.  Yes, our charts can be automatically updated.  Yes, you can scan just the charts in your portfolio.  Yes, we do have 15-minute bar charts.  Yes, we do provide free real-time data for US stocks.  Yes, you can see an example of the Market Message here.  ChartLists are groups of saved charts that you want to review later.  Having more than one ChartList lets you categorize your saved charts.  Yes, members have access to all of this and more.

No, we don't have coverage for the Indian stock market.  No, we don't have technical alerts - yet.  No, we don't provide downloadable data.  No, we don't have real-time futures data.  No, we don't charge your credit card until after the 10-day free trial is over.  No, we don't have Level 2 data.

Yes, you can learn all about our pricing and features at http://stockcharts.com/sales/new.html

"THE CANADIAN INVESTOR" BLOG ADDED - Please give our newest columnist Greg Schnell a big StockCharts welcome by visiting his new blog "The Canadian Technician" located under our Blogs tab.  Greg's blog is about technical analysis from a Canadian perspective and his first couple of articles have been very well received.  

Hint: If Greg's charts look too small on your screen, click on them once to see the enlarged version.

NEW MARKET SUMMARY, FREE DECISIONPOINT OFFER, CHARTCON DVDs

NEW MARKET SUMMARY PAGE - We've updated our Market Summary page to better reflect the indexes, ETFs and Market Indicators that John and Arthur use on a regular basis.  The new version also automatically updates throughout the day.  You can use a dropdown at the top of the page to switch between several different collections of symbols including "Intraday", "End of Day" and "ETF-only".

FREE OFFER FROM DECISIONPOINT.COM! - StockCharts has been a proud partner with Carl Swenlin's DecisionPoint.com website for years.  Now, for the first time, we are offering one free month of service to all of our newsletter readers. (Hey! That's you!)  Simply click here and fill out the form that appears for one month of service.  When you get to the payment page, enter "LETTER10" in the Coupon Code field and press the blue arrow button.  Poof!  Your order total will be zero and you will get to enjoy Carl's great site for one month completely free of charge!  But hurry - this offer is only good for a limited time.  Click here to get started.

CHARTCON DVDs ARE ALMOST READY, PRE-ORDER NOW! - Our ChartCon conference last month in Seattle was a great success and now you can experience it even if you weren't able to attend.  We recorded over 16 hours of audio from the conference and matched it up with the presentation slides to create a 3-disk DVD pack that lets you see and hear everything that went on during the 3 days of conference sessions.  The DVDs are currently getting pressed by the DVD factory and should be in our offices by the end of the month, but you can make sure you get your copy as soon as possible by placing a pre-order for them right now.  Click here to learn more.

CHARTCON EXCERPT AVAILABLE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - Click here to see a 5-minute snippet of video from these new ChartCon DVDs.  In this episode, taken from the StockCharts University sessions, Chip discusses the three key assumptions that underlie Technical Analysis.

ONE LAST THING... - All StockCharts.com subscribers should be sure and visit the "Members" page of our website sometime in the next couple of days.  I promise you it will be worth your time.

ANNOUNCING "BOOK BASH 2011" - STOCKCHARTS' FIRST EVER LABOR DAY BOOKSTORE SALE!

"BOOK BASH 2011" IS HERE!  SAVE 33% OFF ALL ITEMS IN OUR ONLINE STORE!  From now until Labor Day, everyone can save 33% off all items in our online store.  Books, logo merchandise, videos and bundles - all for 1/3rd off!  This is the first time we've EVER run this kind of sale so be sure to take advantage of it now before it ends on Monday.  Click here for details.

NOW EARNING A FREE MONTH OF SERVICE IS EVEN EASIER - We're now offering a free 10-day trial for all StockCharts account types.  That means that it is even easier for members to earn a free month of service simply by having their friends join.  Just point your friend to our sign up page and have them test drive us free for 10 days.  If they join up after that, you'll get a free month of service!  You can start by forwarding this newsletter to them right now.  :-)

REALTIME CHARTS FOR EUROPEAN INVESTORS ARE HERE!

ANNOUNCING OUR "EXTRA REALTIME FOR EUROPE" SERVICE!  We now provide realtime charts for stocks in the London Stock Exchange as well as the Euronext exchange.  This means we now have three new services - "Extra RealTime for North America" (our old ExtraRT service), "Extra RealTime for Europe" and the combination package "Extra RT+EU" that gives you access to both.  Click here for more information.

USE THE "YOUR ACCOUNT" LINK TO RENEW/UPGRADE/DOWNGRADE/SIDEGRADE YOUR SERVICE  We've changed how members make changes to their accounts.  Instead of going to the old renewal pages to renew, upgrade, downgrade or sidegrade your account, you now go to the "Your Account" page by clicking on the link at the top of any page.  There you will find choices relevant to your account.

HALF-CIRCLE CYCLES AND FREE SWAG!

 HALF-CIRCLE CYCLE TOOL ADDED TO CHARTNOTES - Our annotation tool got another upgrade last week.  You can now use it to add half-circle cycle lines to your charts. Here's an example that uses our new version of $GOLD:

To add half-circle cycle lines, click on the normal cycle lines tool at the top of the ChartNotes window and then click on the half-circle tool button that appears below the regular cycle lines button.

STILL HAVE SOME FREE HATS AND TRAVEL MUGS AVAILABLE! - To celebrate the grand opening of our new online store, we've been giving away free baseball hats and travel mugs to everyone who places a $20 or more order.  There is still a limited supply of these free items left.  Why not check out our new store and see if there's anything you need?

"THE STOCKCHARTS STORE" OPENS WITH GIVEAWAY, GERMAN STOCKS NOW AVAILABLE, CREATE YOUR OWN INVOICES

WELCOME TO "THE STOCKCHARTS STORE" - Our old online bookstore has been updated and expanded to create "The StockCharts Store" where you can find all kinds of merchandise for enhancing your charting.  This includes our heavily discounted book bundles as well as StockCharts logo merchandise like hats, cups and travel bags.  The first 75 people that place an order will get a free StockCharts travel mug and hat!  Why not check it out today?

GERMAN STOCKS NOW AVAILABLE ON STOCKCHARTS - We've just added over 500 stocks from the German Deutsche Börse exchange to our database.  German ticker symbols end with ".DE".  Now we can see how several popular German automakers have been doing so far this year:

With this addition, European investors have access to all stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange, the Euronext Stock Exchange, and the German Stock Exchange.  Soon we will start offering a real-time subscription add-on for Europe that will be almost identical to the real-time subscription add-on we currently have for North American stocks.  Watch for an announcement with all the details in the coming weeks.

GENERATE YOUR OWN INVOICES - Now members can create their own invoices directly from the "Your Account" page.  Simply click on the "Your Account" link in the upper right corner of any page and then scroll down to see your account's transaction history.  Buttons at the bottom allow you to create printable invoices for any range of dates you want!

CHARTCON LESS THAN 2 MONTHS AWAY, PIVOT POINTS ADDED

 

CHARTCON 2011 IS LESS THAN 2 MONTHS AWAY!  We're hard at work creating some great presentations for everyone that is attending.  All confirmed attendees should have already received Issue #1 of the "ChartCon Insider" newsletter.  We're also getting some nice swag made using the new "official" logo design that we just got back from our designer.

PIVOT POINTS ADDED TO SHARPCHARTS - We also just added support for Pivot Points as an overlay for our main bar/candlestick tool.  Check out this article for more details.

IMPROVEMENTS TO PREDEFINED SCAN RESULTS

IMPROVEMENTS TO PREDEFINED SCAN RESULTS - We've been hard at work improving our predefined scan results page so that you can quickly see which scans have had the biggest improvements over the course of the past day.  We now have red and green bars that show you the difference in the scan results from the previous trading day.  We've also grouped our scan results into (generally) bullish and bearish scans.  That means that if you see a bunch of red bars by the "bullish" scans and a bunch of long green bars by the "bearish" scans, the market has probably moved lower (and vice versa).  Check it out!

CHIP PRESENTING IN TORONTO ON MAY 31st

CHIP SPEAKING IN TORONTO ON MAY 31st - Chip will be presenting to the Toronto Chapter of the CSTA on Tuesday May 31st.  If you live nearby, Chip would love to see you at the event.  You're sure to learn things about StockCharts.com that you did not know.  For more information about the meeting, please click here.

NEW SCAN OPTIONS, FASTER SERVERS

CANDLESTICK "BUILDING BLOCKS" ADDED TO SCAN ENGINE - We've always been able to scan for standard Candlestick chart patterns, but many of those patterns are based on low level "building blocks" such as "Is a Doji" or "Is in an uptrend" and "Is a Long body".  We've now made those low level conditions available for everyone to use and combine in whatever way you want.  For example, here's an advanced scan that searches for charts with 2 Long Bodies followed by a Doji:

[type = stock] and [daily sma(20,daily volume) > 40000] and [2 days ago Long Body is true] and [yesterday's Long Body is true] and [today's Doji is true]

FASTER AND FASTER - We've just updated several of our data servers to the latest and greatest servers from Dell.  You can see the speed improvement on this graph:

The lower, blue line is one of the new servers - it's about 50% faster than the other, older servers.  While this is only part of what goes into making our site fast, it is definitely a move in the right direction!

CHIP SPEAKING IN LA, PRICING CHANGE FOR CANADIAN DATA, LSE DATA SOON

CHIP SPEAKING IN LA ON JAN. 25th - Chip Anderson will be giving his presentation "Getting the Most Out of StockCharts.com" down in Los Angeles (Long Beach) on Tuesday, January 25th for the Los Angeles chapter of the MTA.  Click here for more details.

CANADIAN REAL-TIME DATA PRICE CHANGE COMING - Because of increased demand we have to change the TSX pricing model that we use for real-time Canadian charts.  We will be moving from the TSX's per-chart model to its per-user model which provides unlimited access to real-time time Canadian charts.

That might not sound like a big change at first because up until now, we have been providing Extra RT user with unlimited access to Canadian charts as part of our US$9.95 real-time fee.  Behind the scenes however, we have been paying the TSX on a per-chart basis.  When we started doing that back in 2004, there were relatively few Canadian real-time subscribers and we expected that the TSX's per-user fees for unlimited real-time charting would eventually come down.  Unfortunately, they haven't.  In fact the TSX recently clarified for us that the pricing is even more expensive that we originally thought.

Because our costs for Canadian data are continuing to increase, we will be switching to the TSX's per-user pricing model starting on March 1st.  After that date, new users and existing subscribers that need to renew will be able to choose if they'd like to use real-time data from the TSX exchange, the Venture exchange or neither one.

If you live in Canada, the cost of unlimited real-time data from the TSX exchange is CD$6.00 per month and the cost of data from the Venture exchange is CD$25.00 per month.  If you live outside of Canada, your only choice is to receive data from both exchanges for US$9.50 per month.  The pricing details can be found here: Canadians and Non-Canadians.

Because of those huge price differences, existing ExtraRT members that live in Canada will be automatically converted to the TSX-only plan as of March 1st.  They can then choose to add the Venture exchange for CD$25 per remaining month.  Existing ExtraRT members that live outside of Canada can choose to continue receiving Canadian real-time data for a special one-time conversion fee of US$6.00 per month.

We are not happy about these changes.  Clearly the current TSX pricing models for Level 1 real-time data (both per-chart and per-user) are not in line with the expectations of most Canadian investors.  We are trying to work with the TSX to get these fees reduced and hopefully something will change between now and March 1st.  Thanks to everyone who have recently made their voices heard on this issue.

Note: Originally we stated that the TSX changed their pricing for real-time data.  They have not.  The per-user pricing quoted above has been in effect since the TSX merged with the CDNX exchange back in 2001. Our apologies for any confusion this has caused.

LONDON DATA IS COMING SOON - We've made good progress on adding data from the LSE to our charting system.  We hope to have that data available in the next couple of weeks.  Stay tuned...

HOLIDAY SPECIAL ENDING SOON

HOLIDAY SPECIAL ENDING SOON! - Don't miss out on our big holiday special - it ends at the end of the month.  If you aren't yet a member of StockCharts.com, now is the perfect time to join.  If you are a member, now is the perfect time to extend your membership and lock in our lowest rates.  In either case, if you buy 6 months of any service, you'll get one additional month for free.  If you buy 12 months of any service, you'll get two additional months for free.  But don't delay - the sale ends on Dec. 31st (less than 13 days from now!)  Click here to get started.

GIVE THE GIFT OF CHARTING - StockCharts.com membership make the perfect "Stock"-ing Stuffer (get it?) this holiday season and right now, you're gift dollars can go further than ever before.  For the first time ever, Gift Memberships also qualify for our Holiday Special.  Give 6 months and your present includes a 7th month for free.  Give 12 months and your lucky recipient gets 2 additional months for free.  Click here to get started.

SEATTLE CHARTCON 2011 IS FILLING UP FAST - So far we have over 90 people who are planning on attending our conference next August.  Don't miss out.  Register today.  Click here to learn more.

MARKET MESSAGE NOW FREE TO ALL STOCKCHARTS MEMBERS

MARKET MESSAGE NOW FREE TO ALL STOCKCHARTS MEMBERS - In case you missed it, on Friday we opened up the Market Message area of our website to all StockCharts members.  If you subscribe to Basic, Extra or ExtraRT, you now have full access to the Market Message area also.  Check out this article for more details on all the great stuff you'll find there.

(Note for existing Market Message subscribers:  We've added additional time to your account to compensate you for these changes.  Check out this article for details.)

"LIKE" OUR FACEBOOK PAGE IN ORDER TO BE NOTIFIED OF CONTESTS AND GIVEAWAYS - Our Facebook page is a fun place.  Up there you will find funny/thought-provoking financial quotes, helpful tips for using the website, and periodic contests with a wide variety of prizes.  We've just gotten a new shipment of "swag" - merchandise with our logo on it - and hope to be sending it out to contest winners very soon.  But in order to play, you need to join our Facebook page.  Just go to http://facebook.com/stockchartscom and then click the "Like" button at the top of the page.

MORE EXTRA IMPROVEMENTS, CHIP IN NYC, FASTER SCAN UPDATES, "PUZZLER" CONTESTS

CHIP ANDERSON PRESENTING ON LONG ISLAND THIS WEEK: Chip will be at the Old Bethpage Library in Plainview, NY this coming Thursday starting at 6:30pm.  He'll be giving his popular "Getting the Most from StockCharts.com" presentation.  For more details, click here.  Please stop by if you are in the area.

IMPROVEMENTS TO OUR EXTRA SERVICE:  In addition to the big news that Chip mentioned in his article this week, Extra members are also getting lots of little improvements as well.  The Market Carpets are wider.  The Gallery charts are also wider.  The Edit view has a number of improvements that should make it easier to use.  If you hover your mouse over the page numbers in 10-per-page view, a popup will appear showing you the range of ticker symbols on that page.  There's a new popup calendar for calculation scan date offsets.  And finally we now have links to our instructional videos on the Members homepage.

FASTER SCAN UPDATES:  We've been working on decreasing the Intraday update time for ScanEngines.  We now have it down to less than one minute (about 30 seconds) which means that Extra members who run scans with the "Last Intraday Update" selected should see results that are very close to "real-time" meaning that the oldest data in any given scan should be less than 45 seconds old.  (In the past it was up to 10 minutes old.)

"PUZZLER" CONTEST WINNER:  We held our first "Puzzler" contest last week and it was a big success.  Congrats to David Choy for being randomly selected from the 24 correct answers that we received. The answer to Puzzler #1 was MHP, WAT, MO, and IBM. Our S&P MarketCarpet can show you "Up Days-Down Days" for any recent range of dates. Just select it from the dropdown in the upper left corner of the carpet and then stretch/move the slider at the bottom. We'll have another Puzzler contest for everyone on Monday.

CHARTING CONTEST ENDS SUNDAY. CHIP SPEAKING IN CLEVELAND. ICHIMOKU SUPPORT IN SCANS. CHARTNOTES 2.0 BETA NEWS.

WIN A RARE STOCKCHARTS FLEECE JACKET! - Hurry!  We are holding another contest on our Facebook page.  This one is for great charts.  Just post your "best" chart on our Facebook page and you could win one of three StockCharts.com fleece jackets.  Entries will be judged in the following categories:  Best Technical Information, Most Creative, and Best Annotations.  Check out the charts that have already been posted for ideas.  But hurry, the contest ends on Sunday!

CHIP PRESENTING TO THE AAII IN CLEVELAND ON WEDNESDAY - "I'm heading out on the road again next week.  This time I'm bound for Cleveland and the good folks at the Cleveland chapter of the AAII.  I'm presenting to them on Wednesday, October 20th at 6:30pm in the Brecksville Recreation Center in Brecksville, Ohio.  There's just a small admission fee to cover the cost of the venue.  Please come by and see me if you can.  (I always hand out "swag" at these events!)  Here's a link to all the details."

ICHIMOKU CLOUD SIGNALS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN THE SCAN ENGINE - If you are a fan of Ichimoku Cloud Charts, you can now enter criteria for various cloud signals into your scans.  Want to see all of the stocks that have just had their Base Line enter the cloud?  There's a scan for that.  Click here for more details.

CHARTNOTES 2.0 BETA NEWS - More improvements are coming soon including (finally) the ability for you to start uploading charts with these new annotations on them.  Thanks for all the great feedback that's been sent in so far!

NEW CHARTNOTES NEXT WEEK, CHIP SPEAKING IN MICHIGAN

NEW CHARTNOTES BETA WILL START NEXT WEEK - We're very close to having the new version of our ChartNotes annotation tool ready.  We showed off many of the new features in last month's newsletter.  Keep checking the "What's New" section of the website for an announcement.

CHIP SPEAKING IN MICHIGAN NEXT SATURDAY - On Saturday, Oct. 9th at 10:30am, Chip is going to give a presentation to the Computer Trading Special Interest Group of the Eastern Michigan Chapter of the American Association of Individual Investors (EM-AII-CT-SIG).  The meeting is at the Farmington Community Library in Farmington Hills just outside of Detroit.  Chip will be showing off some of the lesser known features of the website and answering audience questions.  He'd love to see you there if you are in the area.

A GUIDE TO THE STOCKCHARTS SOCIAL SCENE

FACEBOOK? TWITTER? YOU TUBE? LINKED-IN? - In case you missed it, StockCharts has recently expanded into several different social media networks.  So, what do you need to do about it?  Do you have to join these things too?  If so, which ones?  What's different about the information there compared to what's on the website?  We agree that it can be confusing.  Here's an FAQ about it:

Q: What's the difference between these four new areas and the website?
A: Our website contains the vast majority of our content in both the tools area and in our Blogs area.  Our Facebook page contains notifications of any blog articles we publish along with some fun, free features like "Quote of the Day" and occasional contests and giveaways.  Our Twitter feed pretty much duplicates our Facebook page for Twitter users.  And our Linked-In group allows Linked-In members (i.e., professionals) to connect with each other inside that network.

Our YouTube page is a little more special.  There you will find instructional videos and tutorials that aren't available elsewhere.  We will post links to new videos on our website when they become available.

Q: Do I have to join these other places?
A: No, you don't have to join any of these other places if you don't want to.  Anyone can visit our Facebook and YouTube pages without having to join anything.  Any content that we put on Twitter and Linked-In will also appear on our website and our Facebook page.

Q: If I only want to join one of these, which one should I join?
A: Facebook - definitely.  (But also bookmark the YouTube page.)

Q: I want to join everything.  What do I do?
A: Create a Facebook account and then click "Like" at the top of our Facebook page.  Create a Twitter account and then click "Follow" on our Twitter page.  Visit our YouTube Channel page and click "Subscribe".  Finally, create a Linked-In account and then join our group.  Keep in mind that if you join all of these networks, you'll see lots of duplicated announcements.

Q: Does any of this cost money?
A: Nope.

Q: Why would I want to do this?
A: Again, this is all optional.  People who join these networks will probably be notified of updates to our websites sooner than others.  They can also use these networks to share information with other StockCharts users.

Q: Are you going to join any other Social networks?
A: No - four is probably too many already!