chartSeries {quantmod}R Documentation

Create Financial Charts

Description

Charting tool to create standard financial charts given a time series like object. Serves as the base function for future technical analysis additions. Possible chart styles include candles, matches (1 pixel candles), bars, and lines. Chart may have white or black background.

reChart allows for dynamic changes to the chart without having to respecify the full chart parameters.

Usage

chartSeries(x,
           type = c("auto", "candlesticks", "matchsticks", "bars","line"), 
           subset = NULL,
           show.grid = TRUE, 
           name = NULL,
           time.scale = NULL,
           TA = 'addVo()',
           TAsep=';',
           line.type = "l",
           bar.type = "ohlc",
           theme = chartTheme("black"),
           layout = NA,
           major.ticks='auto', minor.ticks=TRUE,
           up.col,dn.col,color.vol = TRUE, multi.col = FALSE,
           ...)

reChart(type = c("auto", "candlesticks", "matchsticks", "bars","line"), 
       subset = NULL,
       show.grid = TRUE, 
       name = NULL,
       time.scale = NULL,
       line.type = "l",
       bar.type = "ohlc",
       theme = chartTheme("black"),
       major.ticks='auto', minor.ticks=TRUE,
       up.col,dn.col,color.vol = TRUE, multi.col = FALSE,
       ...)

Arguments

x an OHLC object - see details
type style of chart to draw
subset xts style date subsetting argument
show.grid display price grid lines?
name name of chart
time.scale what is the timescale? automatically deduced
TA a vector of technical indicators and params, or character strings
TAsep TA delimiter for TA strings
line.type type of line in line chart
bar.type type of barchart - ohlc or hlc
theme a chart.theme object
layout if NULL bypass internal layout
major.ticks where should major ticks be drawn
minor.ticks should minor ticks be draw?
up.col up bar/candle color
dn.col down bar/candle color
color.vol color code volume?
multi.col 4 color candle pattern
... additional parameters

Details

Currently displays standard style OHLC charts familiar in financial applications, or line charts when not passes OHLC data. Works with objects having explicit time-series properties.

Line charts are created with close data, or from single column time series.

The subset argument can be used to specify a particular area of the series to view. The underlying series is left intact to allow for TA functions to use the full data set. Additionally, it is possible to use syntax borrowed from the first and last functions, e.g. ‘last 4 months’.

TA allows for the inclusion of a variety of chart overlays and tecnical indicators. A full list is available from addTA. The default TA argument is addVo() - which adds volume, if available, to the chart being drawn.

theme requires an object of class chart.theme, created by a call to chartTheme. This function can be used to modify the look of the resulting chart. See chart.theme for details.

line.type and bar.type allow further fine tuning of chart styles to user tastes.

multi.col implements a color coding scheme used in some charting applications, and follows the following rules:

reChart takes any number of arguments from the original chart call — and redraws the chart with the updated parameters. One item of note: if multiple color bars/candles are desired, it is necessary to respecify the theme argument. Additionally it is not possible to change TA parameters at present. This must be done with addTA/dropTA/swapTA/moveTA commands.

Value

Returns a standard chart plus volume, if available, suitably scaled.

Note

Most details can be fine-tuned within the function, though the code does a reasonable job of scaling and labelling axes for the user.

The current implementation maintains a record of actions carried out for any particular chart. This is used to recreate the original when adding new indicator. A list of applied TA actions is available with a call to listTA. This list can be assigned to a variable and used in new chart calls to recreate a set of technical indicators. It is also possible to force all future charts to use the same indicators by calling setTA.

Additional motivation to add outlined candles to allow for scaling and advanced color coding is owed to Josh Ulrich, as are the base functions (from TTR) for the yet to be released technical analysis charting code.

Many improvements in the current version were the result of conversations with Gabor Grothendieck. Many thanks to him.

Author(s)

Jeffrey A. Ryan

References

Josh Ulrich - TTR package and multi.col coding

See Also

getSymbols, addTA, setTA, chartTheme

Examples

## Not run: 
getSymbols("YHOO")
chartSeries(YHOO)
chartSeries(YHOO, subset='last 4 months')
chartSeries(YHOO, subset='2007::2008-01')
chartSeries(YHOO,theme=chartTheme('white'))
chartSeries(YHOO,TA=NULL)   #no volume
chartSeries(YHOO,TA=c(addVo(),addBBands()))  #add volume and Bollinger Bands from TTR

addMACD()   #  add MACD indicator to current chart

setTA()
chartSeries(YHOO)   #draws chart again, this time will all indicators present
## End(Not run)
[Package quantmod version 0.3-6 Index]