DATASTREAM CHARTING ADVANCED FEATURES

Transcription

1 DATASTREAM DATASTREAM CHARTING ADVANCED FEATURES Thomson Reuters Training Creating and customizing complex charts is easy with Datastream Charting. The full breadth and depth of Datastream s vast database of over 140 million time series is available in a state-of-the art charting tool that lets you create your own styles and templates with the possibility to export your charts to Microsoft Office applications. Discover how easy it is to use these advanced features of Datastream Charting. Content: Review the Basics of Datastream Charting...2 Using the Library...3 Correlation Tool...4 Customizing Charts...6 Using Styles...9 Datatypes and Expressions...11 Using Templates...13 Export Settings for Excel, Word and PowerPoint...14 Managing Charts using the Add-in...15 Need help or further training?...16

2 REVIEW THE BASICS OF DATASTREAM CHARTING Datastream Charting is an intuitive web-based tool, designed around your workflow with key analytical tools just a mouse click away and shortcuts for expert users. Datastream Charting allows you to: Access key indicators and preview datasets within a few mouse clicks Easily create charts for any financial instrument or indicator Manage charts, styles, and templates through the library Modify charts with customized expressions and multiple options Insert dynamic charts in Microsoft Office documents Now let s review Datastream Charting functionality. Open a Chart page by selecting Datastream Charting from Datastream AFO. Go to Datastream Charting > Datastream Charting > Chart. Click on the New Blank Chart button regional equity indices. to open a new chart. Then, type the following codes to insert four Click the Save As button Short Code field: to save the chart. Type World Benchmarks in the Name field and wbench in the 2

3 USING THE LIBRARY The Library page contains both Datastream standard charts, styles and templates provided as pre-built examples and user created charts, styles and templates. They can be organized into Groups which makes it easier to classify charts by subject, owner etc. Opening a saved chart from the Library Click on the Library tab and go to the Library page. The side bar on the left shows the storage structure. Go to Charts > Shared and then to the directory where you saved your chart (in this case the equity folder) and click the name of the chart. The chart will open in the Chart page. Working with multiple charts in the Library Similar to a single chart, you can preview more than one chart. Select the required charts you want to preview from Datastream, Shared or Private sections using the check boxes then click on the chart icon at the top of the Library toolbar. Similarly, you can copy the selected charts or export them to Microsoft Office applications. Alternatively, to work with all charts in a folder and all its subfolders, right click on the folder name in the folder hierarchy and select the required option. When selecting Preview Charts, the Chart Browser dialog opens showing the charts in single chart view or in a layout view. You can browse through the selected charts to preview as well as set your own view preferences. Click the Single Chart View icon to explore the charts one by one or click the Layout View icon to view more than one chart in the chart browser. You can browse through the charts using the First, Previous, Next and Last buttons. 3

4 One by One Preview Multiple Chart Preview If you select either the Export chart to Excel / Export chart to Word / Export chart to PowerPoint option, the Export Settings dialog box will pop up. Enter the settings and click the Export Chart button to execute the exporting operation. Note: for more information, please see the section Export Settings for Excel, Word and PowerPoint. CORRELATION TOOL If you go to Charts > Datastream, you can open pre-built charts available to all Datastream Charting users. Go to Charting Features > Correlations, and select Correlation US leading indicator and industrial production to see an example for the correlation function. The required series are loaded automatically the first series is the year-on-year percent change of the Industrial Production of the US, the second series is the year-on-year percent change of the Conference Board Leading Economic Indicator of the US. 4

5 Now let s click the correlation icon to open the Line Correlation dialog: Choose the line to be correlated against the other lines Select the remaining lines to be correlated or only those lines of your choice Choose your date range: To see the correlation coefficients for a wider range of leads and lags, click to change the frequency. The spectrum of correlation coefficients for a range of time shifts applied to the second line. - Maximum Available date range full length of the time series (max 2000 data points). - Use Chart date range displayed on the chart, which can be customised. The best fit - the time shift producing the highest correlation between the two lines - is highlighted in yellow. 5

6 To apply a selected lag or lead to the series select the required time shift in the Apply column. Click the Apply Selected Shifts button to redraw the chart with the selected lags/leads applied to the series. In addition, to export the correlation spectrum results to Excel, click the Export Data to Excel button in the Line correlation dialog. Note: you can learn how to use other specific features by opening the appropriate sample charts from the Datastream folder in the Library page. CUSTOMIZING CHARTS This section introduces some of the tools available for customizing charts. We will use the earlier World Benchmark example. Open the chart using the Short Code, wbench. Type wbench into the command box on top right of the Chart page and press Go. Rebasing To apply rebasing, click on the Left or Right Axis link. Alternatively, go to Chart Settings and click on the Rebasing link under the Axes section to rebase the lines on the chart. Let s rebase the series to 100 at 01/01/1996 by setting the start date of the chart. Annotations You can add text and annotations to your chart using the Annotation Editor. To add an annotation to a chart, click the Annotations tab at the bottom left of the Chart page. To add a Series Annotation linked to one of the series on the chart, click the Add Note link to the right of the series name in the left hand panel. The Annotation dialog will open. 6

7 Type the required text in the text box, using Control Enter to create additional lines, or hover your cursor over the Fly-out icon next to the text and select a substitutable next Use Annotation Font and Annotation Formatting to specify font, size, color and line styles. Specify the date at which you want the annotation to join the line and set the position of the text box by typing offsets from the X and Y axes. The annotation will still be linked to the specified datapoint when you next refresh the chart. You can also add text boxes, vertical lines, horizontal lines and freehand lines or arrows under the Chart Annotations section. Text Boxes enable you to add comments to your charts which are not linked to a particular series or date. The text box can be repositioned by clicking and dragging it with your mouse (SVG users only) or typing offsets from the X and Y axes into the dialog box. Vertical Lines are tied to a date on the X axis and Horizontal Lines are tied to a value on either the left hand or right hand Y axis. You can also add a comment. The line will remain tied to the specified date or value when you next refresh the chart. You may use absolute dates (e.g. 15/01/2009) or relative dates (e.g. -1Y). If SVG Viewer is installed, you can move the lines by clicking on it and dragging it to the required position. Freehand Lines are available for SVG users only and are used to draw lines or arrows in any position on the chart. 7

8 Substitutable Text You can use substitutable items in your annotations. Substitutable items will be converted to the correct text for your current chart settings when you refresh the chart. Substitutable items include static and time series Datatypes, as well as certain Functions and keywords. Substitutable items should be entered inside curly brackets { } to differentiate them from fixed text. You can type them into the text box or select from the menu. Here are some examples of useful substitutable items: {NAME} Name of the series {VAL#} Value of the current or latest data point {DATE} The date of the displayed value {TIME} The date of the latest value in the series Commonly used substitutable items can be selected from the Fly-out menus to the right of the text box. For more information on substitutable text, select Substitutions Help from the Fly-out. Recession Bands Click the Recession Bands link on the Annotations tab or in the Pane editor and hover your mouse over the Flyout icon to display US, Japan, UK, Germany, France and Euro area recession bands on the chart. For the US, the data is sourced from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and shading will show for any periods where the United States economy was officially in recession. For the other countries, the data is sourced from Datastream and the calculation is based on 2 successive quarters of negative GDP growth. The color of the recession bands is determined by the foreground color. Click the Canvas Settings link on the Chart Settings tab to set the background color and foreground color of the chart. 8

9 Let s change the following items: - Background Color 1 - Foreground Color - Add text to Source - Change Source Font These attributes will be used in the following section. USING STYLES Creating a new style You can save various settings such as line styles, fonts, chart background color and source attribution text as a user created style and then apply this style to other charts. To save the settings from your current chart as a user created style, click the Edit and Save as a Style icon on the toolbar of the Chart page. The Style Design Window opens with a preview of the settings you have selected. You can make any further changes in this window to achieve the look and feel you require. Once done, click the Save as New Style button. The Save Style dialog opens. Enter a new style name in the Name textbox and select either a destination folder from the Shared or Private section or create a new folder to save the style. Note: the Private section will be visible only if you have a child ID. 9

10 Click OK to return to the Chart page, where the new style will be displayed. The new style will also be displayed in the Styles section of the Library. Applying a style to a chart To apply a previously defined style to the current chart, click the Apply Style icon on the toolbar of the Chart page. The Apply Style webpage dialog opens showing the available Datastream Styles together with any user created styles. You can preview any of the styles by clicking the preview icon in the dialog. Select a style from the available list and click OK. The selected style is applied to the chart and displayed in the Chart page below the chart. Note that once a style has been applied to a chart the appearance settings of the chart will be locked. This is indicated by a padlock icon next to any locked setting. If you wish to make a change to one of the locked settings you can either remove the style with icon or click on the padlock icon to unlock the setting. You will be warned that this action will remove the style. If you continue the chart will be detached from the style and any future changes made to the original saved style will not be reflected in the chart. You can also edit the style that has been applied to the current chart by clicking the Edit and Save as a Style icon on the toolbar and then clicking the Save this Style button, which is only available when editing the applied style. 10

11 DATATYPES AND EXPRESSIONS Applying Datatypes Now let s create a new blank chart with Two panes - 2:1 and apply any chart style of your choice. Add Microsoft (@MSFT) to the first and second pane. You can show the trading volume of the Microsoft stock by applying a Datatype to the series. To apply a Datatype to a single series, click the Series and Dates tab at the bottom of the Chart page. Open the Fly-out menu from the Fly-out icon to the right of the series name. Go to Datatype > Find Datatype... and use Navigators Datatype Search to find the Datatype you require. Select Turnover by Volume (VO) and return to the Chart page. Now the second pane shows Microsoft trading volume, instead of the stock price. Using stored expressions on a chart Several hundred useful pre-formatted Datastream expressions are available in the Expression Picker. To find a stored expression, click the Series and Dates tab at the bottom of the Chart page. Hover your cursor over the series Fly-out icon and click the Find Stored Expression option. The Expression Picker will open in a new window. Select the expression you require by clicking the hyperlinked title or code. If the expression contains any symbolic variables then you will need to specify the series or parameters you wish to use. Let s delete the volume chart in the second pane and add a 5 year historical beta for Microsoft s stock price over S&P500. We also change the date range to -20Y. 11

12 Note: to learn more about Expressions, please refer to the course Datastream - Functions and Expressions. Now let s add the S&P500 Price Index as Line 1.2 to the right axis and finalize the chart by modifying Line Type, Line Colors and adding a Title using Substitutable items. 12

13 USING TEMPLATES Saving a chart as a template You can use the template feature to define a model chart and then run that chart with another series or against a list of instruments to create multiple charts in one action. To create a new template, click the Template tab at the bottom left of the Chart page. Click the Convert this Chart to a Template link. A list of series names is displayed for Substitution Selection. Use the Variable radio buttons to indicate which of the series on your model chart should remain on every chart produced and which should be replaced with the substitute series from the selected list. For example, if you want to show an equity price relative to a benchmark index on each chart, replace the equity by checking the Variable radio button next to the series name. Hover over the Fly-out button to the right of the Series/List box and select Find Constituent List. Select the Dow Jones Industrials Constituent List (LDJINDUS) and the constituents list will be loaded into the Chart page. To save a Template, click on the save button and save the Template by giving it a name then either select a destination folder from the Shared or Private section or create a new folder to save the Template. The Template will now be saved in the Templates Library under the Templates folder hierarchy. You can run the Template to create new charts based on the latest constituents of the selected list. 13

14 Running a template You can run a template from the Library or from Microsoft Office applications. To run a template from the Library, select the Templates tab in the Library folder hierarchy. Hover your mouse over the Fly-out button next to the Template name and select Run Template > Export Charts to Excel (or Word or PowerPoint). Select the required settings in the Export Settings for Excel Webpage Dialog and click Export Charts. The charts will appear in Excel/Word/PowerPoint. Note: please see the next section for details on export settings. EXPORT SETTINGS FOR EXCEL, WORD AND POWERPOINT The Options tab lists various settings which can be applied to the selected charts before exporting. Export settings for Excel Specify the dimensions of the chart(s) in centimetres. Specify whether the charts have to be placed in a new workbook, the current sheet, a new sheet in the current workbook and in which cell the first chart should be Specify whether the charts have to be placed one below the other or in the columns specified. The vertical space left between the charts in Excel. The default is 50 pixels. Specify the file format of the exported image: *.emf: high quality compact metafile suitable for WinXP and above. *.wmf: produces a larger metafile and is suitable for Win2K users. *.png: generates a bitmap format suitable for web publishing. Background allows you to select a transparent chart background so that any formatting or design in your spreadsheet will be visible through the chart. 14

15 Export settings for Word Export settings for PowerPoint Specify the position of a page break after the specified number of charts. When multiple charts are selected, the Charts Order tab allows the user to specify the order in which the charts are to be exported and displayed in Excel. Pre-formatted layouts offer a selection of layouts with preformatted settings for landscape and portrait slides. If you do not wish to use a pre-formatted layout, select the [Custom Layout] option and specify your settings below. MANAGING CHARTS USING THE ADD-IN The charts exported from Datastream Charting can be edited and refreshed in Microsoft Office applications Excel, Word and PowerPoint. To use this functionality you will need to install add-ins for Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Once the charts are exported from Datastream Charting to a Microsoft Office application, they can be refreshed and edited depending on the rights the user has. Options such as Refresh Selected and Refresh All allow the user to refresh the charts present in the sheet. You can also run a Template to create new charts based on the latest constituents of the selected list if you export the template to Microsoft Office applications. Go to Datastream Charting > Run Template, select the Template to run and click Run Template in Run Template dialog. 15

16 Chart Manager The Chart Manager is used to maintain charts in a Microsoft Office application. To open the Chart Manager, click Datastream Charting > Chart Manager. A dialog box will open showing all the charts in the current workbook / document / presentation. For more about Chart Manager, see the Datastream Charting Online Help. You can refresh, edit, apply style to, delete, remove links from, and upload selected charts below. Select one or more chart(s) to run operation Updating multiple office documents The Datastream Charting Index (DCIndex.xls) enables you to refresh charts and run Templates in multiple Excel, Word and PowerPoint documents in one action, and to optionally schedule this refresh using an external scheduler such as Windows Task Scheduler. Go to Datastream Charting > Schedule for Refresh to open DCIndex.xls. Select the office documents to update with full pathname, specify Update/Ignore for the next operation, kind of operation (Refresh/ Run Template), and click Process INDEX to run the update immediately. When you use an external scheduler, add a task for the DCIndex.xls file (DCIndex_Standard_Edition.xls for Office 2003 Standard Edition) located in C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\application Data \Datastream\Datastream Charting Add-in. NEED HELP OR FURTHER TRAINING? On data and functionality: You can select "Contact Us" from the toolbar to receive an instant response. The system generates an and a member of the Thomson Reuters Support Staff will contact you within a few minutes; On training: You can access comprehensive on-demand elearning modules and/or register for our interactive training sessions directly via our website: You can contact your local training center. 16