"My best wishes for 2010 for you and your team.

"I have a question regarding the chart library: Is it possible to display a chart with the spread between two assets: e.g. XLB (Basic Materials) and XLU (Utilities). If possible, how can I do it?

"As usual, thank you very much for your superb service."

Eoin Treacy's view Thank you for this question which I'm sure will be of interest to other subscribers. The Spreads and Overlays section of the Chart Library contains more than 100 preset spreads for sovereign and corporate bond markets as well as a number of monetary indicators. You can also use the Chart Library's Charting tool to compare any two instruments, including as a spread

Let's work through your example:

First select the SPDR Materials ETF (XLB) from the menus or via the Chart Library search. Once you have found it, choose any chart. Now click on the Charting tab, located in the charcoal bar above every chart. A pop up window will appear.

The 'Relative' dropdown menu is in the upper third of the popup window and contains a list of popular instruments for relative, spread and overlay comparisons. In this case the instrument you want to spread XLB over, the SPDR Utilities ETF (XLU), is not in this list so you will need to locate it.

Your next step will be to click on the 'Other Relative' tab located in blue below the Relative dropdown menu. A separate popup will appear containing a menu and search box. You know the ticker for the instrument you want so type 'XLU' into the search box and click on the 'Go' button. The Utilities SPDR will pop up in your results. Click on it.

(If you did not know the ticker for the instrument, you could also have located it with a keyword search or via the menu).

You will now see the Utilities SPDR in the 'Relative' box.

You now need to decide what operation you wish to conduct with these two instruments i.e. XLB and XLU. The dropdown menu to the right of where Utilities SPDR now appears has four options. (ratio, difference, multiply and overlay) Since a spread is the difference between two instruments, chose difference from this second dropdown menu.

Now hit Apply. Here is the chart.

(If you wanted to see a relative chart of these two instruments you would follow all of the same steps and choose ratio instead of difference at the end. Here is what the chart would look like.)

If you would like to save these setting so that you can spread any instrument over XLU, click on the Charting tab again. The same popup window will appear but this time click on the Save button in the green bar at the top of the window. Give the template a name by typing in the 'Save Settings as' box and click on the OK button. Refresh the page. Your new template will now have been added to the Chart dropdown menu in the upper right of the Chart Library page. For more detailed instructions on how to save your settings please click here.