1. Teaching TOS charts new tricks
7/18/09 San Diego Marc Covitt

2. Topics What we won’t be covering Key things you should know (DEMO)
Items for which TOS provides Resources and training THAT you should know about
Not a TA explanantion; Not active trader
TOS vs. Prophet Charts
Key things you should know (DEMO)
Shortcuts (DEMO)
Misc recommendations
Q & A (Goal is to learn something new)

3. Resources you should know about…

4. 1. ThinkDesktop’s Learning Center
Note: Don Kaufman claims to be an “anti-chartite”

5. Do a Keyword search. “Charts” or “Prophet”

6. Some other Resources Prophet.net Investopedia.com
Describes technical studies
Investopedia.com
And of course, just Google (or BING?)

8. TOS Charts vs Prophet Early TOS platform included Prophet
Thinkorswim was unable to get some features included and in ~2003 decided to develop their own TOS Charts, but kept Prophet charting
Investools bought Prophet (Tim Knight) in ~2005, and with the 2006 merger with TOS he ended up reporting to Tom Sosnoff…
(Rumor has it that the AMTD merger will add another package to platform, eventually)

9. TOS Charts vs Prophet More flexible formats Visually cleaner
Supports thinkscript and strategies
Integration w trading platform and WL’s
Drawing tools “sticky”
Can be confused
Visually cleaner
Some things are just easier to do/change
Pattern recognition +
Different data feed, but index/future don’t share symbol set w trading

10. Where do you want to go?

11. Maybe this?

12. Or this?

13. Or this?
2 min, 5 min, 15 min, & Daily compared with another stock/index

14. Or this?

16. TOS Charts Powerful Flexible Confusing Frustrating
But let’s try to see how to improve the situation.

17. Key Concepts Basechart Studies, Styles, Grids Defaults Links Shortcuts
Watch Lists (for charts)

18. Demo Create a simple chart Show Edit Studies Shortcut
Create a new default
Set a link pattern
save as a style
Create a grid pattern (naming..)
Show multiple layouts

19. Some suggestions Create your OWN default chart
Save your default (in case of a reset) as a named Style. (then you can recover)
Use the shortcuts
Especially for volume, ext hours, corp actions
Use the edit studies button and search to load up studies
Use linking, & Watch lists for quick charts
Use a standard naming pattern for grids.

20. Naming grids – a suggestion
XXa YYY NNNNNNNNNN
xx = number (i.e. 01 – 99)
a = (optional) alpha
yyy = Color (linking) code
NNNN = descriptive name

21. Color Schemes
Color (factory) defaults vary based on Color Scheme choiceing when logging in.
Color choices may not look good, or even be visible if you change Color Schemes.

23. No change in screen design or color palette, but look what happens when TOS background screen is changed.

24. Final thoughts Multiple ways to get there.
But learning quick steps will save you time.
Flexible grids allows for more customized grids
USE link color in Market View (lower) list for fastest chart
Create specialized grids with different link colors.
Spend some time “playing” with it.