DeltaMaster has had them since August 2007. Now, the business section of the Germany's honorable FAZ newspaper has been using them since the beginning of 2009. We are talking about scales that embedded in a table and show a current value in relation to its history.

How a current value lies in relation to its historical high and low is not only interesting on the stock market. Statisticians call these differences a "range". Stock experts refer to them as "fluctuations". On the stock market the extreme values are generally calculated over a span of 52 weeks. Sometimes, however, the minimum and maximum values are measured for the respective calendar year.

A graphical table showing the fluctuations in stock prices. The FAZ has used this feature since January 22nd, 2009. The data shown here was published on January 30th, 2009.

Comparing a current value with its fluctuations delivers important information. Stock traders, for example, want to know if the current price marks a new historic high or low, how far it is from the extreme values, if it ranks in the top or bottom-third compared to past prices, etc.

But the position of a current value in comparison to previous measures is also interesting for other hard facts such as prices, costs or revenues as well as soft factors such as customer satisfaction or television ratings.

Graphical tables with ranges and sparklines in DeltaMaster

DeltaMaster illustrates ranges with a sparkline because a position alone isn't enough to satisfy inquiring minds for long. They immediately will start asking themselves other decisive questions. Has the position been that way for long? Is the current trend positive or negative? Were the variances sudden or gradual?

As a result, DeltaMaster users still have a significant advantage over FAZ readers.

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