With your favorite charts customized and saved just the way you like them, you're ready to begin analyzing the latest moves. To help, you can draw trend lines, technical line studies, and other annotations on your charts using our ChartNotes annotation tool.
A wide variety of annotations, incuding trend lines, text annotations, and technical line studies, can be added to your charts using our ChartNotes annotation tool. Members can annotate any SharpChart and then save it, complete with annotations, in a ChartList.
To draw a trend line on a chart, create the chart in the SharpCharts Workbench, just like you did in Step 2. Make sure the settings are all correct on the chart, and click the Update button before you annotate. Changing settings such as Period after you annotate can lead to unexpected results.
Once your chart is ready, click the Annotate link below the chart. This will launch the ChartNotes tool, displaying new menu options above and to the left of your chart.
On the left side of the chart, click the button that looks like a line with a circle on each end, and then choose the Trendline tool. Now that you have the correct tool selected, you're ready to draw your trendline.
To draw the line, mouse over the spot where you want the line to start, then click and hold the left mouse button while you drag your mouse over to the spot where you want the line to end. When you let go of the mouse button, your trend line will be created.
To move the trendline around after it's been created, click and hold on the yellow box at the end of the line, then drag that end over to the desired location.
The menu above the chart allows you to change the properties of your currently-selected annotation. For trendlines, you can change the color, width, and style of the trendline, plus add an arrowhead to the end of it.
Next, let's add an Auto Support-Resistance line to your chart. This handy tool helps you quickly spot price levels functioning as support or resistance. You simply set the annotation at a specific price level, and the line color changes depending on whether the price bars are above (green) or below (red) the line.
To add an Auto-Support Resistance line annotation to your chart, click the button that looks like a line with a circle at each end, and choose the Auto Support-Resistance tool.
Once you've selected the tool, click on the chart to add the annotation. To move the line to a different price level, click and hold on the yellow box at either end of the line, then drag the line up or down. While dragging, the current price level of the line will be displayed on the left side of the line.
We've used two of the more popular annotation tools so far, but there are many others available. Both of the tools we've used so far are in the Line Tools menu, along with vertical and horizontal lines and parabolas. The button beneath this one on the menu (with "Aa" on it) opens the Text Tools menu, which includes two types of text annotations, price labels, Elliott Wave labels, and more.
The next button (with the square on it) contains our Shape Tools, allowing you to draw rectangles, ovals, and triangles.
The last button on the list (with the three curved lines) contains our Line Studies Tools, including four types of Fibonacci tools, two cycle tools, Andrews Pitchfork, and many more.
Feel free to explore these tool menus and add any other desired annotations to your chart.
When you've finished annotating your chart, you'll want to save it for future study. To do this, click the save button on the left (the one with an arrow pointing down to a tray). The button icon will change from black to red as soon as you've made any changes to your chart.
If the chart you're annotating is not already saved in a ChartList, you'll be prompted to select a ChartList and type in a name for your chart.
Once you click the save button, your fully-annotated chart will be displayed in the SharpCharts Workbench. You can call up the chart at a later date to see how it has been behaving, and adjust your annotations if necessary.
Note that by default, annotations like trendlines will automatically shift as new data is added to the chart, so the annotations stays with the price bars that you placed it next to originally.
In our next article, we'll take a look at the Advanced Scan Engine and show you how to use our scanning tools to find promising new stocks and funds.
Happy Charting!
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