The Financial Chart: A Tool, Expressive Visual Object and Performative Agent
The Financial Chart: A Tool, Expressive Visual Object and Performative Agent

Summary/Abstract: The article argues that financial charts are something more than just useful tools that allow investors to analyze and detect investment opportunities. Namely, they are also expressive visual objects and performative agents. The former means that they are replete with different meanings and references and, as such, they are not only viewed in an informational manner, but also in other more expressive ways. The latter, in turn, means that financial charts are not so much passive representations of financial exchange as active actors that shape it. Moreover, as performative agents, financial charts not only shape this exchange, but also contribute to the constitution of financial markets themselves; to the very functioning and existence of these markets. All this shows that financial charts and, from a more general perspective, that which is visual, play a very important and complex role in capital markets, much more important and complex than is usually indicated.

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