Patent ID: 7043449

Claim:
A computerized method for monitoring for a user the price activities of a financial instrument traded in a financial instrument traded in a financial market in a given timeframe, comprising the steps of: (a) plotting a plurality of bars on a price-time chart by a processor wherein said price-time chart is a two dimensional chart, with the Y-coordinate representing price and X-coordinate representing time, with the X-axis divided into a predetermined plurality of discrete intervals, wherein each interval has a bar of the plurality of bars associated with it, each interval represents an amount of time equal to that of the given timeframe, each bar indicates at least a high price and a low price traded by the market during the associated time interval of the bar and each bar is vertically displayed on said chart; (b) employing with the processor a bar from said chart and building a frequency distribution with the processor wherein an interval between a high and low price of said bar is divided into a plurality of discrete predetermined price intervals and said frequency distribution identifies the amount of trading activities taken place in each of the said discrete price intervals within the period of time represented by said bar; (c) deriving with the processor a set of discrete intra-market elements from said frequency distribution, said set of discrete intra-market elements comprising an active range defined by a continuous price range containing substantially high trading activities determined by a first statistical range extending from a statistical center calculated from said frequency distribution, a modal point defined by the highest trading activities for a price in the time interval, and an extreme tail defined by a continuous price range containing substantially low trading activities determined by a second statistical range beyond said first range; (d) representing on a computer display device each element of said set of intra-market elements by a first geometric figure, and overlaying said first geometric figure onto said bar; and (e) displaying on a computer display device the overlaid price-time chart to the user.