A company's share price reflects performance and potential. National and international economic factors have an obvious impact on the ability of a company to perform, both positively and negatively.

However, certain macro economic factors will have more impact on one company in comparison to others, just as other macro factors will impair another company.

Market Shares recognises this and allows you to consider such impacts. Firstly, a company's monthly share price performance is compared to its sector and the overall market (XAO) irrespective of historic economic conditions.

A selection of 1 year, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years is available. The graphs display 3 values per entity; the minimum (lighter blue), the average (black) and the maximum (darker blue) monthly share price performance for the selected period. Exact values for each entity are listed on the 'x' axis.

In these graphs (the following sections), companies are benchmarked against rising and falling cycles of various factors such as GDP (Gross Domestic Product), Interest Rates, Bull/Bear markets, etc. The default view for each graph set is its current trend cycle (e.g. Rising).

Each graph set has a description followed in brackets by the data start date and the current shown trend cycle. To display the opposite trend, simply click on the blue bracketed link at the end of the description line, e.g. '(Show GDP Falling Cycles)'. This will subsequently change the graphs being displayed in that section.

In the Performance Ranking Graphs, the subject company's historic share price performance, for the selected economic factor cycle (e.g. GDP Rising), is compared to its own historical values (for the same factor cycle) and then calculated into quartiles - where 1 is the top (best) 25% of values, 2 the next 25%, 3 the next and 4 the lowest.

There are two additional elements to the Performance Ranking graph.

Firstly, the subject company's historic share price performance is also compared to all of its peers in its Sector. Imagine the subject company's historic share price performance was good enough to place in the top 25% of its peers then it would display as quartile 1.

As a final benchmark, the subject company's historic share price performance is compared to all of XAO constituents and again its quartile result is displayed.

The Quarterly Performance Graph is similar in style to the All Markets Monthly Performance graph except that it is a reflection of the quarterly performance in particular macro economic trend cycles (e.g. Rising). The graphs display 3 values per entity to indicate the monthly share price performance for the selected trend, with the 'minimum' being lighter blue, the 'average' black and the 'maximum' darker blue. Exact values for each entity are listed on the 'x' axis.

Firstly, a company's quarterly share price performance for all those selected cycles is displayed. To the right, its sector's quarterly performance for all those selected cycles is displayed, and finally the overall market's (XAO), quarterly performance for all those selected cycles is displayed.

The Occurrences and Monthly Median Performance Graph can provide a valuable insight into the subject company's sensitivity to a trend in a particular macro economic climate.

It is a bar style graph with 2 'y' axes. The left being the scale for the number of positive or negative (depending on your trend selection) occurrences and the right hand side being the scale for the actual performance.

There are 4 blue bars in each graph. They are;

• the subject company,
• the subject company's sector,
• the market (XAO), and
• the total number of cycles of the selected trend.

The black line is only displayed for the first 3 bars (entities); company, sector and market. It’s reflecting the median (the middle value in a set of values) monthly performance for each entity for all the occurrences within the selected trend.

The 3 rowed 'x' axis identifies the entity and reveals the 2 sets of values;

• The top row identifies the first 3 bars (entities), company, sector, market, and the description of the selected trend cycle (e.g. Bull),
• The 2nd row displays the number of occurrences for the 3 relevant entities and the total number of occurrences for the selected trend cycle over all of the available time periods.