Shows whether the stock is trading higher or lower than the previous day's closing price. The price per share for the articular trade (the last bid price). Abbreviations are K = 1,000, M = 1 million and B = 1 billion The Unique Characters used to identify the company.
#THE TICKER TAPE TV#
It is these up-to-the-minute transaction figures - namely price and volume - that we see today on TV news shows, financial wires and websites while the actual tape has been done away with, it has retained the name. It wasn't until 1996 that a real-time electronic ticker was launched.
Ticker-tape machines introduced in 19 were twice as fast as their predecessors, but they still had about a 15 to 20 minute delay between the time of a transaction and the time it was recorded. The shorter the distance between the trading floor and the brokerage, the more up-to-date the quotes were. These latest quotes were delivered by messengers, or "pad shovers," who ran a circuit between the trading floor and brokers' offices. During the late 19th century, most brokers who traded at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) kept an office near it to ensure they were getting a steady supply of the tape and thus the most recent transaction figures of stocks. The first ticker tape was developed in 1867, following the advent of the telegraph machine, which allowed for information to be printed in easy-to-read scripts. Hence, a ticker tape automatically records each transaction that occurs on the exchange floor, including trading volume, onto a narrow strip of paper or tape. What exactly is that cryptic script reeling by? It obviously tells us something about stocks and the markets, but how does one understand the ticker tape and use it to his or her advantage?įirstly, a tick is any movement, up or down, however small, in the price of a security. While many people simply block out the ticker tape, others use it to stay on top of market sentiment and track the activity of certain stocks.
#THE TICKER TAPE SERIES#
You've seen them on business programs or financial news networks: a flashing series of baffling letters, arrows and numbers scrolling along the bottom of your TV screen.