The most commonly used market research tool is a price graph or chart. A chart displays the historical pattern of a security or commodity time series data. For example, did the series reach a new 1-month high, or is the series trading near the annual low or is the series trading in a tight range? Charts also make it easier to analyze the relationship between time series data. The "Money & Investing" section of the Wall Street Journal contains charts for certain major investment sectors. For example, this newspaper displays the daily closing price for the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the last two calendar years.

MIMIC provides users with advanced charting capabilities that are easy to use. To create a price graph or chart, you must first build a worksheet in the Configuration window.

To construct a simple graph of the closing price of a security, you must have entered all pertinent information about the security or series into the Worksheet. The basic information needed to define the series is the symbol (the security of interest) and the column or data series that corresponds to the symbol. This information is added to the Worksheet using the Data Builder. The combination of a symbol and a column form the complete identification of the series.