Website - Graphs and Charts

[compengr]

Hi All,

If this isn't the right place please direct me to the right place. If however you can assist me with an answer please do.

I'm looking to setting up a website

1. where people can type in various queries on stocks (prices, comparisons, traded volumes, annual reports, market capitalizations, gainers and losers, etc.) and the results in form of charts, graphs, reports will be displayed immediately.

2. that will display various technical indicators like EMA, MACD, MACDh, etc. on past prices and vloumes.

3. etc.

Example queries would be

1. display a graph of security XYZ and volumes traded each day from 01-01-2006 to 07-31-2007.
Expected result: A graph of prices will be on top and that of volumes will below.

2. Display companies with market capitalization more than XXXXX amount.

THE MORE FLEXIBILITY IN CREATING DATA SETS, QUERIES AND THEIR CORRESPONDING RESULTS THE BETTER.

FOR NOW I DO NOT NEED REAL-TIME DATA FEED BUT IT WILL BE BETTER IF THE SOFTWARE HAS THAT CAPABILITY, BUT I ALSO WANT TO BE ABLE TO ENTER IN DATA MANUALLY.

How do I go about this? I'll appreciate any guidance I can get on this, including the tools that I can use to set this up. I already have Dreamweaver though but I'm new to it. I guess I'll need a back-end software where data will be stored and mined from, and then an application that does the mining, and then displays on the web interface.

I want this website to stand out due to VARIED QUERIES (INCLUDING COMPARISONS) that can be submitted and the results generated in form TREND GRAPHS, CHARTS, REPORTS, etc.

I believe this is called data mining.

Thanks.

[MidiMagic]

This is no project for a beginner, and you aren't going to achieve it with off-the shelf software. It sounds like a heavy programming job.

The first thing you may have to deal with is copyright. Are the data you are trying to use copyrighted? If so, you can't do it at all without permission of the owner (which may be the reason it has not been done).

Second, there are security issues. Automatic operations such as this are often prohibited. You might have to own the server to have permission to do this.

Once you have the data, SQL queries can find the information from the tables you create. But I can't find any chart generation function in any of my books on SQL or PHP.

Actually, graphics generated in the server may be a security issue, because viruses often hide in graphics files. You may have to upload the graphics from your desktop.

[autocrat]

... compengr ...
No offence, but what .. MidiMagic .. has said is very true - this is no little project you hae decided to go for.

That said, so long as you have the correct tables with the corret data in it.... it shouldn't be overly difficult, so long as you really know how to play with data-sets and use the right methods (otherwise you will produce incorrect graphs!).

As for the Graphs... you have two options...for simple things you can use CSS (simply create a div whose width would equal 3px times the value of the Stock%... so Stock % =20... x 3px, = 60px width, and set the colour to red... then for the next, you set the colour to blue etc.)

Alternatively, there are several little PHP libraries or API sets that will take data nad generate images from data for you... look for something like jpgraph or google for php graph generator.

Of course... if you do not know how to program in php/mysql... or asp or what ever you intend to use, it is not likely to happen - such things are not "simple" or "easy" to learn like that.

Best of luck though

[ramzo]

Its not so simple pal...u need to search through different books and preograms...the graphical rendtion of stock prices with animation and charts needs a lot of action script integrated with VB and C++...
So long way to go..may use ready to use softwares..that needs to be searched