USING BLOCKDESK TO IMPROVE YOUR INVESTMENT RETURNS: OUR PRODUCTS

MORE ON ANALYSIS USING BTF CHARTS

• A BTF Chart does not show a conventional hi-low-close stock price history.  It is a history of price range forecasts by professionals who make the market in the stock.
  
  
• A BTF Chart differs from a normal Hi-Lo-Close bar chart in several important ways:

1. Each vertical bar is a forecast price range, made at the time the price (the big square dot in the bar) was recorded.  This forecast is made by the block traders after the day's close, as they prepare for the next day's opening.  The forecast bars on each BTF chart are one week apart in time and go back for two years.

We report their forecasts weekly, typically Thursdays. Market prices are updated daily at the closing price, shown by a dashed bar.

2.  The size of the bars indicates how much uncertainty the block traders have about a stock's future. For example:

• Big integrated oil companies and utilities usually have ranges that are small in proportion to their price
  
  
• Unseasoned biotech, electronic, and software companies often have larger ranges.

3.  What is important is where the price lies in the forecast range.  What you should watch for are those points in time when a stock is priced near the extremes of its forecast range.  When the price is at or above the top of the range, the block traders are indicating it is fully valued.  When at the bottom, they suggest it is cheap.

Extremes of price are color coded to help point them out. The colors should be familiar to any driver:

• Weeks where the price is low relative to expectations are shown in green.
  

• When price is getting high relative to expectations, the data is plotted in yellow.
  

• When price leaves very little upside the plot is in red.