Columbia becomes the first US university to divest from private prison companies

Re:Columbia becomes the first US university to divest from p... by chimeracoder on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @01:07AM (#9769729)

> Interesting article, but the first graph is one of the most blatantly misleading charts I have seen in a long time. Showing two graphs overlapping on completely different scales is a really nasty trick.

They are the same in 2010 because that's where the graph starts. The rest of the graph should be interpreted as "cumulative growth as of $DATE, relative to 2010".

This is actually a common way of presenting two stocks. I believe Google Finance does it. Search for any ticker symbol (e.g. GOOG) and then type in another where it says "compare" (e.g. TWTR). No matter how far back you pull the graph, the leftmost points on each line will always overlap.

I agree that it's a bit weird if you're not used to it.

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Re:Columbia becomes the first US university to divest from p... by jflatow on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @01:39AM (#9769839)

I don't think so - in Google Finance compare both graphs are actually on the same scale. Since the scales here are independent, it depends on the chosen scale where they will cross. The graphs do not start in 2010, they start in 2000.

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