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thinkhard42's avatar
thinkhard42
Copper Contributor
Jun 11, 2025

Chart Tracking Multi-Daily Stock Positions of Multiple Stocks

I am trying to create a line chart (or another type of chart at someone's recommendation) to track the number of shares of stocks someone owns throughout the day over a four-month period. 

I am dealing with 13 individual stocks. For a number of these stocks the person made multiple trades a day, so the number of stocks he owned would go up and/or down multiple times on a single date.

I have the data arranged in different sets of columns with the date, number of shares bought/sold, and then a running total of the shares owned after each transaction. For example:

 

12/01/22 | +100 | 100

12/05/22 | +500 | 600

12/05/22 | -300 | 300

12/05/22 | +700 | 1000

 

I tried adding the stocks one-by-one into a line chart but after adding the third stock the text of the horizontal axis, which would be the dates of each transaction, gets messed up and moves to the far left of the chart. 

 

If anyone has an idea on how to present this data in a chart, I would greatly appreciate your help/advice.

 

 

 

 

Charting

1 Reply

  • Kidd_Ip's avatar
    Kidd_Ip
    MVP
    Jun 12, 2025

    Try belwo that may help:

     

    1. Use a Line Chart with Proper Date Formatting
    • Ensure that your X-axis (dates) is formatted as actual dates (not text).
    • Use a scatter plot instead of a line chart if the timeline needs to reflect irregular trading dates.
    • Consider adjusting the X-axis settings in Excel (Right-click X-axis → Format Axis → Select "Date" instead of "Category").
    1. Consider a Candlestick or OHLC Chart
    • If you're primarily tracking price movements alongside share counts, an OHLC (Open-High-Low-Close) or candlestick chart might work better.
    • These charts visualize stock trades over time while accounting for fluctuations.
    1. Create Separate Charts per Stock
    • If the number of trades per day creates visual clutter, try making individual stock charts and placing them in a dashboard view using Excel’s chart layouts.
    1. Use a Pivot Table for Aggregation
    • Create a pivot table to summarize each stock's daily transactions.
    • Then, use stacked bar charts or area charts to show cumulative shares.
    1. Adjust Label Density
    • Reduce X-axis label density using Format Axis → Label Position → "Rotate Labels" or "Interval Unit" settings.

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