In order to best see the cup with handel pattern, what chart is best  ie.  1 yr - weekly, 6 mo - weekly, etc.?

Thanks, in advance, for any feed back from the board.

Not saying right or wrong but I use daily charts preferably one year...Probably just habit though...Doug

The action on the chart can look different on different charts.  For the purpose of looking for stocks forming bases and possible buy points, you need to look at both daily and weekly charts.  Generally speaking the monthly charts are to long term to show a lot of value for what we are trying to do implementing CAN SLIM principals.

The IBD professionals almost always start with weekly charts and then drill down to daily charts to look at the specifics….  I personally use the daily charts first and then confirm with the weekly.  Hope this helps.  To further your education I suggest watching the Daily videos that IBD provides.  They have one during the day called “The Daily Stock Analysis”,  and one each evening entitled IBD Market Wrap.  They are archived for a couple weeks.  I suggest you view them every day.  And if you have time go back and look at the archived ones.  They will teach you a lot about “reading” charts in those videos on current stocks.

Another question that pops up from reading the last post about charts looking different...Do you prefer Logarithmic or Arithmetic charts?...Doug

Thanks for the response. 

Hi Guys,

If you read Bill's books, you'll find that he almost always uses weekly charts. The way that the IBD person is schooled to do this, is to use the weekly first and then confirm with the daily if required.

Regarding time frames: Use the screen that is populated. This should provide you with enough history to make well educated decisions as you learn the character of the company.

Regarding which scale to use: If you're going to annotate, you'll want to use the log scale. This provides you with the clean understanding of what is occurring should you draw channels, potential sell points, when the next base should most likely set up (based upon the character of the company).

Lastly, I am in agreement with the above comment; to use the videos daily. Develop a routine that works.

Step by step as you go. Also, this is a great community, don't be afraid to ask and welcome.

Hope this helps,

Tom

Make sure you have two computer monitors.  Open two windows in Marketsmith.  Check the box "receive symbols from the main chart".  One chart is weekly and the second is daily.  So when you run your stock screens you can see the weekly and the daily at a glance.  Count and mark the bases on the weekly.  You need to look at the daily chart to see handles forming so you can be prepared to buy.  The weekly charts in Marketsmith are logarithmic and those are the charts WO recommends drawing trendlines on.  I like to label the number of up versus down weeks on above average volume as the bases with more up than down weeks have a higher success rate.  I also label the base count.