Interpreting Curves - Rates of Change etc...

What you're talking about sounds a lot like Technical Analysis, which is the term for a general art of analyzing stocks from chart information.  That would make a good starting point.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis

moving averages has a long history of use in predicting sunspot activity.
If you are looking for unusual betting activity, you might calculate the dirivitive of your curve and program an alert to sound when it changes by a predetermined amount.

I agree with every thing written here and must say it similar to technical analyze of stock market and the same rules will work in your case. learn a little bit on the subject and get to know terms like signal, entry point, exit point, strategies and find the eqvilent in your field.

Mandelia - I think derivatives will not work there as it a statistical data that unlike "regular" function (of any order) would  work only on a given data segment without prediction of out-scope segments.
 

Hilay- I suggested derivatives because the question specifically said "Rate of Change".
Even if the data i collected samples like in a stock market. derivatives is what we use to analyse data.
The only difference is we segment our data. derivatives, local maximas and minimas, support and rate of growth are all some of the most common form of derivatives that a stock analyst looks at.
In stock analysis, we first need to smoothen data ignoring spikes and then analyse it. Even conditioning of data differs from one analysis to other

hi,

thanks for all the comments!!! keep them coming.
i am very new to this and am trying to keep my head above the water at the moment so all comments help.
the one thing i need to be able to achieve is some way of automating the analysis of data so that a person isn't involved.

on another note, the markets i am looking at are odds markets that generally start every morning and finish sometime during the day. in general what would be a good time frame to analyse the data. seconds, minutes, hours?
also, these markets tend to become very volatile close to the market close time when large volumes of money are being fed into the market. is this type of sudden movement even predictable?

i appreciate that you may not know the markets in question and therefore are unable to give a concrete opinion. but i'm wondering if some of the behaviours that i see in these markets are common in other areas/markets. does volume in general dictate movement?

thanks again