I was talking with a GUI consultant recently.  We typically do not use GUI consultants, however, she sparked an interesting discussion about the use of “Grammar” for our icons.  She had brought up a great point.   Though it may be a bit redundant on our Alert & Filter definition page, we did agree that it would be helpful to offer a breakdown of the various meanings of the symbols used on the icons.  Just like the use of grammar in sentences, we have a structured set of rules for each type of alert and filters.  So, with that said, we decided to provide a summation of the icons with their rules and/or meanings.

Things to notice with our icons are the different sizes and shapes of the symbols/numbers/letters and the positioning of them.

Whenever you see a number in this size, it means that number of minutes. This , for example, is the range in dollars over the last 5 minutes.  Hours are similar, but we add the “H.”  For example,  is the range in dollars over the last 2 hours.  Days and months will be marked similarly.  This  is the range in dollars over the last 10 days (or two weeks).

The SMA filters are more complicated.  Here, , the 2 is in the same font and size as before, so it still means 2 minutes.  This icon means that we are looking at a chart with 2 minutes per bar or candle.  The smaller numbers say how many candles (or bars or periods) we are looking at.  In this case, we are asking how far the 8 period SMA is above the 20 period SMA.

These small arrows always refer to stock options: , , , , , and .

Compare those to these larger arrows: , , , , , , , , , , and .  These filters all talk about the position in range.

These are similar to position in range: , .  But they only look at the top of the range or the bottom of the range.

This font and size is used for fundamental data: , , and .  Notice that some of these include a triangle pointing up.  That triangle always means growth.  Some of them have a tilde (~).  The tilde means estimation or approximation.

These vertical lines should look familiar: , , , and .  These represent volume.  Sometimes they are drawn bigger than others.  That’s only because we had limited space, and it doesn’t have any other meaning.

Some icons look exactly like the chart pattern we are describing, i.e. shows a stock gapping up, shows a stock where several candles in a row are going up, shows a stock that is consolidating.  The corresponding filters help you find stock charts like look like these icons. Most of the time “D” means day, as in  is the daily RSI or the daily Bollinger band.

However there are a few exceptions, like , which tells you how much the DOW has moved in the last 30 minutes.  ( says how much the DOW as moved for the day.)

Of course, you never have you guess what an icon means.  For our Alert & Filter Definition Help page,  Click Here and it will give you all the details.  In most cases, you can click on an icon to take you directly to our help page.