Dear Trader, having a mastery of Investing means you need to know the very best tools to use. Those tools that offer the most in flexibility, usability, functionality and most of all, enable you to make a killing in the marketplace.
Through detailed research of the most popular Free Stock Charting Tools on the web we have compiled the definitive review of FREE Stock charting tools. We selected the biggest hitters of the Stock Charting Community and pitted them head to head to make your life easier and save you the work.
We did not review every feature, we only compared the features that we feel the winning investor really needs. However the review is indeed very detailed and specific.
We would claim this is the "TOP 10" Online Stock Charts around today, however there were only 9 that met our minimum criteria and were worth reviewing.
So here we go with the TOP 9 Stock Charting Providers on the web.
Comparison Factors, what the investor needs!
So now you know the measures here are the results.
Caveats for the review:
Other Charting tools may exist, but they were not easily locatable from Google Search.
If a function exists within a tool but was not discovered by the reviewer that is not the fault of 3WISE, please make your functions more easily accessible.
The criteria used, are those that are in the view of the author the most important factors according to our successful trading strategy.
the author has no affiliation with any of the providers
THE WINNER FreeStockCharts
FreeStockcharts.com
The best stock charting tool in the review. Created by the Worden Brothers Incorporated, this tools takes the internet users to the next generation of functionality, usability and knowledge. There is no competition.
Free Real-time Streaming
A huge selection of indicators
Ability to draw trendlines
Real-time News
Completely intuitive design
No Download Required (runs on Microsoft Silverlight) requires only a generic silverlight install.
Personal Watchlists and portolio tracking completely integrated.
So you have seen the subjective review based on the points system available at the authors Website and the checklist. So here is a brief qualitative summary of the contenders, and their relative merits.
Big Charts is a contender, and receives 2nd Place. has it all, all the important indicators, candlesticks, OHLC, and every indicator on the checklist. One of the defining factors, which in fact sets it apart from the others is the ability to plot Trend lines. Well done Bigcharts. Out of our test it was the ONLY ONE with this ability, unbelievable. Wake up and smell the coffee everyone else.
Bigcharts
I believe is owned by CBS Marketwatch, but if you go to the Marketwatch website you do not get all of the functionality, and they want you to log in. I would suggest to Marketwatch they integrate the full BIGCHARTS package into their standard offering and provide a differentiating customer experience. Bigcharts has not had a style upgrade in years, and seems to be the forgotten child.
Google Finance
While Google finance suffers criminally in the weakness of its charting, scoring 7 out of 28 points, and the worst of all contestants, it is not all bad news.
Google is an excellent place to go for a single page of latest news, blog alerts, and the P&L & Balance Sheet of any stock, and if you only need a rapid view of the general stock this is still a good stop of point for a general look. The news reports can be overlaid on top of the stock price which is unique and valuable to the investor interested in how news plays out in the stock price.
Yahoo Finance: Yahoo like Google offers no trend lines, but does offer 9 sub windows with a healthy array of indicators to plot in those windows. Coming joint second in our review, Yahoo it seems can do at least one thing better than Google.
MSN MoneyCentral: While the stock screener from MSN Money is in the opinion of 3WISE the best free screener available, the charting software comes in only in 6th spot. Lack of trend lines, Moving averages, OBV and index overlay mark it down heavily. However with Membership you can get real-time stock quotes.
CNN money: CNN money fares well in joint 3rd place with all indicators available, but suffers from only 1 sub windows and no ability to draw trend lines. Also the chart is only static, and non interactive format becomes highly annoying after a while, having to continually refresh the page to get new indicators plotted will make the experiences investor growl.
AOL Finance: AOL finance, "nice try but no cigar", more effort required to produce a good product. Read the results table, 7th place, no need to discuss further.
Reuters: With its powerful news reporting and RED Green Candlestick plotting Reuters does have a lot to offer, coming in Joint third with Yahoo. Missing stochastics, money flow and rolling EPS combined with its lack of trend lines, takes it out of the reckoning for leadership in this test.
Stockcharts.com: The self proclaimed "simply the webs best financial charts" unfortunately comes in joint 3rd in our survey. Worth commending are the sharp charts, which are visually very impressive, and its array of exotic indicators may excite the "think they know it all investor" for the wise investor this is no one stop shop.
Missing trend lines, rolling EPS, and a weak news service do not do it justice. More effort from Stockcharts.com could make it the best free service on the web. They do offer a Membership service starting at 14.95, and scaling upwards, but for this money you could buy a service like "Telechart 2007" which is frankly the best pay for Charting and screening software around for those on a budget, at .99 per month.
Liberated Stock Trader, save yourself time and effort use Freestockcharts for Charting, and Google to collect your news and go and nail down some profit.
If you would like your site to be included in this review please post to the authors website.
