Scattercharts provide a powerful insight into the performance and volatility of anything from a single fund, to the whole of a sector.

The Scatterchart tool is used in conjunction with the standard performance charting tool to create a fully interactive view of whichever instruments have been selected.

The basics:

A Scatterchart plots the12 month performance of a chosen instrument or instruments against it's volatility (risk).

The Risk level of an instrument is determined by fluctuations in it's price over a given period. The more the price moves up and down, the greater the perceived risk (volatility).

When viewing a sector or number of sectors simultaneously you will notice that certain types of investments exhibit certain traits - for example: the UK smaller companies sector will tend to include a large number of stocks with high volatility (risk) and good performance. Whereas the cautious sector may contain funds with much lower volatility but slightly lower performance.

Getting started:

To create a scatterchart, start by selecting your chosen funds / sectors using the standard charting tool. Once a list has been created (below the charting tool) you are ready to click the blue 'view as scatterchart' button (image below):

NOTE - for best results select a sector. This will plot all instruments within the chosen sector simultaneously within the chart.

Using the Scatterchart :

Now that your interactive Scatterchart has been created you can look at any of the charted instruments in more detail. This can be done in a number of ways

Hovering:

You can hover your mouse pointer over any instrument within the chart. This will display details of the fund, including it's performance and risk grade.

Zooming:

You can zoom in to any part of the Scatterchart by clicking + holding your left mouse button and moving the mouse to create a box. When you release the left mouse button you will zoom into the area that you selected. To zoom back out right click any part of the Scatterchart area.

NOTE - Once you have finished using the Scatterchart simply the blue 'back to charting' button at the bottom of the page (image below):