DISPLAY APPARATUS

摘要

A display (62) for presenting trends in financial commodities such as stocks. The display (62) is made up of an array of rectangular boxes (60) each representing an individual stock. Each display (62) is dedicated to a different sector of the market. The color of the individual boxes (60) is representative of the degree of fractional deviation (16) of the most recent trading price of that stock from an assigned selected reference value (14), e.g., the price at the end of the previous trading session. Preferably, the location of each individual stock within the display (62) is determined by the degree of influence that the user is to perceive that stock has upon one characteristic of the market, e.g., the volatility of one axis (X) and perceived source of volatility on another axis (Y), or the stocks can be located in accordance with decreasing market share on one axis (X) and decreasing capitalization on the other (Y). The result is a color display (62) in which the current behavior of stock prices with respect to a selective set of reference stock prices (14) in a selected sector of the economy is summarized in a checkerboard-like collection of visual boxes (60) whose individual colors show the current trend in trading prices. The overall display (62) shows sector trends and those individual stocks deviating from those trends. The individual boxes (60) can also be designed to show trend information about the stocks that they respectively represent.