4 ms·

Stock price graphic plots should always use logarithmic scale. Spot the difference: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg60zczsg2012-01-01zeg2014-07-25

• Avalaxy 12y ago
  Not necessarily stock prices, but exponential growth. Not all stocks grow exponantially.
  • btczeus 12y ago
    It's not about the rate of the growth. It reflects better percentage movement (that's what's important). Nominal movements in price are meaningless. Really. Thing about it. A 100% growth at $10 is the same as 100% growth at $100 if you want to calculate revenue but it is not reflected as that in a linear scale.
• chollida1 12y ago
  I'd disagree. Plot MSFT US Equity over the past 10 years and tell me how a logarithmic scale on the y axis would improve over a regular y axis? Most stocks don't grow logarithmically, especially over shorter periods of time. Not to go all appeal to authority, but Bloomberg and Reuters, the two top names in financial information show their charts using a regular, non logarithmic scale. If you think logarithmic is always better you should take it up with them:) EDIT, the link below actually illustrates my point as it says that logarithmic is good for large jumps, which as I mentioned, don't usually happen over the time periods that people view returns.
  • btczeus 12y ago
    Well then think again. http://stockforecast.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/using-logarithmic-price-scale-for-stock-performance/ http://stockforecast.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/using-logarith... So you say a jump from $30 to $31 is equal to a jump from $3 to $4. I thing that is misleading. When price jumps are small the error also gets small, but it is still there.
    • Chronic29 12y ago
      If you care about the magnitude of the change, use a percentage change graph, not lograthmic.
  • Anderkent 12y ago
    It says they show 'both big and small' changes acurately, not that it's good for large jumps.
  • apaprocki 12y ago
    A Bloomberg terminal lets you display anything you want in logarithmic scale if you so desire.