2D StockSeries Chart for Presenting Financial Data

This tutorial explains how to load financial data from a CSV file and display it using LightningChart StockSeries. Stock series are used to visualize stock exchange data in candlestick and stock bars formats. The tutorial assumes that you have created a new chart with LightningChart on a WinForms or WPF application. If not, please follow our Simple 2D Chart on creating an application.

1. Define variables for X- and Y-axis and configure X-axis to display values as dates.

// Configure X- and Y-axes.

// X-axis configuration.
var axisX = chart.ViewXY.XAxes[0];
axisX.Title.Text = "Date";
axisX.ValueType = AxisValueType.DateTime;
axisX.LabelsAngle = 90;
axisX.MajorDiv = 24 * 60 * 60; // Major division is one day in seconds.

// Y-axis configuration.
var axisY = chart.ViewXY.YAxes[0];
axisY.Title.Text = "Price";

2. Create a new StockSeries to hold the stock information.

// Create a new StockSeries.
var stockSeries = new StockSeries(chart.ViewXY, xAxis, yAxis);
chart.ViewXY.StockSeries.Add(stockSeries);

3. Configure the stock plot.

// Configure the stock plot.
stockSeries.Style = StockStyle.OptimizedCandleStick;
stockSeries.FillBorder.Width = 1;
stockSeries.Title.Text = "Example Inc.";

4. Load the data.

Load the data from a CSV file into the series data points using series.LoadFromCSV(string fileName, SeparatorCSV separator). The data has to be organized in columns in the following order:

Date	Open	Close	High	Low	Value	Transaction
DateTime	double	double	double	double	int	double

Series values can be written into a file using series.SaveToCSV, which is a pair function for LoadFromCSV.

stockSeries.LoadFromCSV("../../../data/data.csv", SeparatorCSV.Semicolon);

5. Create a reference to the loaded data points.

// Create a reference to the loaded data points.
var stockData = stockSeries.DataPoints;

6. Generate data for series which matches closed values.

// Generate data for series, which matches closed values.
var closeData = new SeriesPoint[stockData.Length];
for (var i = 0; i < stockData.Length; i++)
{
    closeData[i] = new SeriesPoint()
    {
        X = xAxis.DateTimeToAxisValue(stockData[i].Date),
        Y = stockData[i].Close
    };
}

7. Create a new PointLineSeries to show the dynamic in closed values on Stock Exchange.

// Create a new PointLineSeries to show the dynamic in closed values on Stock Exchange.
var lineSeries = new PointLineSeries();
lineSeries.Title.Text = "Example Inc.";
lineSeries.Points = closeData;
chart.ViewXY.PointLineSeries.Add(lineSeries);

8. Auto-scale axes to show all series data.

//Auto-scale X- and Y-axes.
chart.ViewXY.ZoomToFit();