A reader emailed me this chart of GDP, with actual values through late 2008 and projected values for the next two years. To illustrate the uncertainty in the predictions, colored bands were drawn alongside the solid line prediction. The bands become lighter as the distance from the prediction line increases. Because of this appearance, showing [...]

Candlestick Charts Microsoft Excel has some built-in chart types for displaying how stock prices vary during a trading period. This is usually a day, but it could also show weeks, months, or years, or even intervals of minutes or hours during a trading day. These are the prices at open and close of the market [...]

I’ve written often about panel charts, and I’ve made some simple ones, but I don’t seem to have explained the process in enough detail for people to reproduce these simple ones with their own data. Easy Two-Panel Column Chart in Excel was the first of several quick tutorials on easy panel charts. This article shows [...]

I’ve written frequently about panel charts, and I’ve made some simple ones, but I don’t seem to have explained the process in enough detail for people to reproduce them with their own data. This is one of several quick tutorials on easy panel charts. This article also answers the question, “How do I fix a [...]

Microsoft introduced Sparklines as a native feature of Excel 2010. In a rare guest post, Sparklines For Excel vs. Excel 2010 Sparklines by Alex Kerin of Data Driven Consulting compared this new feature to existing third-party sparkline add-ins for Excel. In Sparklines and Data Bars in Excel 2010, I gave an introduction into how to use the new [...]

In Republicans Blamed Most for Ineffective Government in U.S. Poll, Bloomberg show results of a poll that asked who was to blame for ineffective national government in Washington. Their results were shown in this donut chart: I was pointed to the Bloomberg article by Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, who wondered in Everybody Hates Everybody Else why [...]