Contents

1. Introduction

2. Accessing Fractal Map Controls

3. Fractal Map Structure

4. Colouring

5. Shaders

6. Arrows

7. Sorting

8. Analysing the Major World Equity Indicies Report

9. Further Information

1. Introduction

This document is intended to provide help for the "Major World Equity Indicies" Fractal Map, available on the Fractal Edge homepage. It is assumed that you are familiar with Fractal Maps and are able to view the "Major World Equity Indicies" Fractal Map in your browser. For help on viewing Fractal Maps through a Web Browser, using Fractal Maps and for further information, please refer to the Online Fractal Map User Guide.

2. Accessing Fractal Map Controls

In addition to the colouring and structure options available in other online Fractal Map examples, the "Major World Equity Indicies" report also allows configuration of shaders, arrows, and sorting of items in the map.

In order to accomodate the large number of controls, a "Show/Hide Controls" option has been added. To access the structure, colour, arrow, shading and sorting options, click the plus (+) icon next to the "Show Controls" label. This is located to the right of the page above the colour legend.

The Fractal Map Controls are then displayed and can be used as normal. The controls can be hidden again by clicking the minus (-) icon next to "Hide Controls" label.

3. Fractal Map Structure

The "Major World Equity Indicies" report contains data relating to a range of stock indicies from around the world. It can be used to track the performance of the various stocks in these indicies. Each stock in the Fractal Map has been grouped using the following attributes:

The "Major World Equity Indicies" report provides a number of alternate groupings of these attributes. Each of these grouping is called a structure, and can be accessed by selecting the required structure from the "Structure" drop-down.

The "Region - Index - Sector - Group" structure is selected by default. In this structure, the three large circles at the top level of the map represent the three regions contained in the report.

Each region contains a further set of circles representing the indicies operating in that region.

The set of circles contained within each index represent the set of sectors with stocks trading in the index.

Similiarly, the set of circles contained within each sector represent the set of sector groups with stocks trading in the index.

Finally, the circles contained with in the group circles at the bottom level of the map represent the stocks themselves.

The remaining structures in this Fractal Map group on a different set of attributes as inidicated by the name of the structure.

4. Colouring

The Fractal Map is initially coloured by "Realtime Price Change" (i.e. the amount the price of the stock has moved since the opening of trading). The values are aggregated from the bottom line items (e.g. stocks) to the top (e.g. Regions) using one of a number of aggregation functions (in this case, the values are aggregated by calculating their mean average). This gives the average price change at each summary level.

The result of applying a colour scheme to these values colours the top level circle a pale red colour. Comparing this to the colour legend displayed at the bottom of the map indicates that there has been a slight fall in price overall.

Items whose price have increased by greater than 3% have been assigned the bright blue colour shown at the far right of the colour legend. Similarly, items that have fallen in price by greater than 3% are coloured bright red, as show at the far left of the colour legend.

Items with values between these ranges are assigned a colour according to the colour gradient from red (though grey) to blue, as shown in the legend above.

When a different colouring scheme is selected from the "Colour By" dropdown box in the top right hand corner as shown below, the colouring of the Fractal Map changes and the legend at the bottom of the screen updates to reflect any changes in the colours or values used. The "Major World Equity Indicies" report contains a mixure of two- and three-tone colour schemes. The two-tone schemes define a colour for both a low and high value (in additon to the below and above range values). A three-tone colour scheme also defines a third colour for a mid-point value. A summary of each of the colour schemes is shown in the following table:

5. Shaders

The Fractal Map is initialy shaded based on Volume. The aggregation of Volume shades the top level circle with the silk shader. This can be compared to the shader legend at the bottom left of the page, under the colour legend. Hovering the mouse over each shader in the legend displays a tooltip that describes the range of values that are shaded using that shader.

The shading legend clearly shows that the Volume for the top level circle falls within the top third of the values.

In addition to Volume, a shading scheme is also available for RSI 9 Day.

6. Arrows

The default arrow scheme is based on the Last Driection the stock price moved. Items whose sock price moved up have a blue up arrow displayed over the circle in the Map and adjacent to the label text. Items whose stock price has decreased have a red down arrow over the circle and in the label. Likewise, items whose price has not changed have a white arrow pointing left.

Arrow schemes are available for Realtime Price Change, Alpha, EPS Growth, and Moving Av 200 Day vs Last Price (%).

7. Sorting

Sorting defines the ordering of items in the Fractal Map within their parent circle. The "Major World Equity Indicies" map can be sorted Alphabetically (the default) or by Realtime Price Change, Last Price, Volume, RSI 9 Day, Moving Avg 200 Day, Moving Avg 200 Day vs Last Price %, Alpha, EPS Growth and Last Direction.

8. Analysing the Major World Equity Indicies Report

Using the combination of Colour, Arrow and Shading schemes, it is possible to use the Fractal Map to highlight multiple attributes of interest. For example, using the default settings, a bright blue circle can be seen indicating a large (greater than 3%) upwards change in price.

Hovering the mouse over the circle in question causes the Fractal Map labels to be displayed. These inidcate the the large price change occured in the "Oil & Gas" sector group. The labels also contain the arrows indicating that, although there has been a large upward move in the price, the last price movement was a downward one.

Clicking the "Oil and Gas" circle causes the Fractal Map to zoom in "Oil and Gas" sector group. After zooming, the stocks within the "Oil & Gas" sector group can be seen. Again, the bright blue highlighting clearly indicates that the "Nippon Mining Holdings Inc" and "Nippon Oil Corp" stocks contributed most to the overall price increase in the "Oil and Gas" sector group.

Hold the mouse over any of the circles in a Fractal Map displays a tooltip containing all of the exact values of all of the attributes associated with that circle. This feature can be used to examine the "Realtime Price Change" attribute of both the "Nippon Mining Holdings Inc" and "Nippon Oil Corp" stocks. This clearly shows that the greatest change in price was made by the "Nippon Mining Corp" stock with a price change of $6.01.

This simple example illustrates how a Fractal Map can be used to provide a high level overview of information that immediatly highlights trends and extremes, and to quickly drill down in to the data to examine specific items in detail.

9. Further Information

For further information, please refer to the following links:

Online Fractal Map User Guide
Online Fractal Map Examples
Terms of Use for Online Fractal Maps
Fractal:Edge Case Studies
Fractal:Edge Products
About Fractal:Edge