Patent ID: 8355972

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for displaying information about financial market data, the method comprising: under control of a computing system, identifying a first attribute of performance of an instrument being traded on a financial market; determining a first time interval that includes a first time and a second time, wherein the first time interval covers at least one day; automatically generating a first directional indicator of performance of the instrument, the generated first directional indicator including a line having an origin that reflects a value of the first attribute of the performance of the instrument observed at the first time and a destination that reflects a value of the first attribute of the performance of the instrument observed at the second time, wherein the line of the generated first indicator has a horizontal component of nonzero length on a horizontal axis, wherein the line of the generated first indicator has a vertical component of nonzero length on a vertical axis, wherein the line of the generated first indicator is positioned at an angle to the horizontal axis, and wherein the angle increases as a function of a difference between the value of the first attribute of the performance of the instrument observed at the second time and the value of the first attribute of the performance of the instrument observed at the first time; determining a second time interval that includes a third time and a fourth time, wherein the second time interval covers at least one day; automatically generating a second indicator of performance of the instrument, the generated second indicator including a line having an origin that reflects a value of the first attribute of the performance of the instrument observed at the third time and a destination that reflects a value of the first attribute of the performance of the instrument observed at the fourth time, wherein the second indicator is positioned at an angle to a horizontal axis, and wherein the angle of each of the first and second indicators is greater than 0 and less than 90 degrees; and initiating display of the generated first and second directional indicators on a two-dimensional display medium, wherein the line of the first indicator and the line of the second indicator each have a thickness that reflects a value of a second attribute of performance of the instrument, wherein the thickness of the line of the first indicator varies from a first thickness at the origin of the line of the first indicator to a second thickness at the destination of the line of the first indicator, such that the first thickness reflects a value of the second attribute observed at the first time and the second thickness reflects a value of the second attribute observed at the second time.