Canadian Long-Term Chartbook

Long-Term Perspective on Your Stocks

The Canadian Long Term Chartbook is a great tool for getting a long term perspective on your stocks. It is published on the first Wednesday of each month and includes the following features:

1) Charts are plotted with monthly bars back about 10 years depending on the security. It must have traded for 1 year.

2) It covers nearly all stocks on Canadian Exchanges trading at over 40 cents per share, about 1400 charts. includes securities on the TSX and CDNX.

3) It includes Long Term charts for a number of commodities like Gold and most of the Indicies for the TSX and CDNX exchanges. It does not include Warrants or preferreds.

4) The 12 month trailing earnings per share and dividends per share at the end of the year are displayed on the chart, if applicable.

5) All charts include a 12 month and 36 moving average line. They also include a 13 month RSI line.

6) Charts are plotted on a semi-logarithmic scale.

REFERENCE GUIDE FOR THE CANADIAN LONG-TERM CHARTBOOK

A) COMPANY NAME - indicates the common name.

B) COMPANY SYMBOL - up to 5 characters.

C) DETAILED SECTOR DESCRIPTION - indicates our most recently recorded description of the companies main activities.

D) MONTHLY SHARE PRICE - Each vertical line indicates the share price range for the month. The short, horizontal bar indicates the month’s closing price. These prices are adjusted to reflect any stock splits, and are plotted on a semi-logarithmic scale. The alternative scaling method is arithmetic. Arithmetic scaling gives constant scale increments. For example, a $.10 change in share price will be the same distance vertically on the chart regardless of whether the $.10 change is at the top or the bottom of the chart. Semi-log scaling, used in the ISC chartbook charts, reflects the percentage change in stock price regardless of where it is measured. For example, a 1/4 inch price range at the bottom of a chart might represent a price change of 10%. Therefore a 1/4 inch price change at the top of the chart would also represent a 10% change in price. Semi-log scaling is used so that investors can visually determine the varying rates of percentage change in the security’s price.

E) 36 MONTH MOVING AVERAGE PRICE LINE - Calculated as the average of the previous 40 weeks’ closing prices, this figure is then plotted as a coarse dotted line. It serves to indicate the direction of the underlying longer-term trend. Often investors use the 36 month moving average in conjunction with the 12 month moving average to note crossovers or parallel movement - to confirm trends or show divergences. ex. when the 12 month ma crosses up through the 36 month ma.

F) 12 MONTH MOVING AVERAGE PRICE LINE - Calculated as the average of the previous 12 months’ closing prices, this is plotted as a fine dotted line. The 12 month moving average price line serves to smooth out the short-term price fluctuations and provides an indication of the trend.

G) 13 MONTH RELATIVE STRENGTH INDEX - This is a momemtum oscillator designed by Welles Wilder Jr., and indicates the 13-month rate of change in share price. It is used as an overbought-oversold indicator by comparing previous rates of momentum at which the stock temporarily reversed direction. It is also used to confirm intermediate-term new highs or lows. If the share price moves to a new high or low, on lower momentum than the provious high or low, then the move may not be as likely to be sustained. The RSI has a range of 0 to 100 where the dashed horizontal line on the chart represents 50. If the RSI figure is above 50 the RSI line will be above the dashed line.

H) MONTHLY SHARE VOLUME - Each vertical line represents the number of shares traded that month, plotted on an arithmetic scale. The scale is split into 5 segments whereby the top number is the number for the highest volume day on the chart (excluding extraordinary volume - see K). The other 4 numbers on the scale are derived by dividing this maximum number by 5 and multiplying it by the number of the scale-bar (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th).

I) THE NAME CHANGE LINE - a vertical dotted line on a chart is displayed if there is a notice of reorganization of the company during the period of the chart. This could be a name change, stock split, consolidation, amalgamation, etc. In conjunction with the dotted line, a one line summary is displayed at the bottom of the chart noting the nature of the name change and the exact date when it occured.

J) YEARLY DIVIDEND - indicated annual dividend

K) 12 MONTH TRAILING EARNINGS - The corporate earnings per share within the past 12 months.

L) ISSUED SHARES - Number of shares issued.

M) PHONE NUMBER - Phone number

N) TSX - TSX will be displayed in brackets if thesecurity is is a part of the TSX index.

< Back to Canadian Chartbooks page.

If you are interested in Investment software, be sure to
take a free 30-day trial of ChartSmart Stock Screener Software.