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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Stock Market Ticker Tape Definition

By Gilbert Stockton

The stock market ticker tape was created and computerized to give information on stock price, symbol, and volume. It is called stock ticker tape because it used to be printed on paper on a ticker tape machine.

The stock ticker-tape machine was invented in 1867 in the aftermath of the development of the telegraph machine. In those days, "pad shovers" were employed to feed the tape to brokers in their offices; brokers would set up offices as near as possible to the New York Stock Exchange, etc, so that they could get the feeds via wire as quickly as possible. With globalization and computers this sort of setup is clearly no longer needed.

Stock market ticker symbols are the letters (once in a while also numbers) used to denote a particular security that is being traded publicly and/or on stock exchanges. This symbol is chosen by the company when it begins issuing shares for public trading, and it's what is used to track stock activity and place buy or sell orders by investors. These brief symbols are necessary to streamline the vast amount of activity information that flows through stock exchanges on every business day. Without the stock market ticker symbols, confusion and turpitude would reign in the stock market.

There are many shows on TV that run the ticker tape across the bottom of the screen like MSNBC. This symbolic language can be difficult at first but becomes easier once you start playing the market more.

Stocks symbols are one of the most recognized form of symbols. Stocks on the NYSE have three letters. Stocks on the Nasdaq have 4 letters. Mutual funds have even more.

"Ticker" comes from the conceptual word of "tick", which is any activity of a stock whether it be up or down. A stock market ticker symbol readout will include, in order from left to right: the unique call letters of a specific security; the volume or number of shares traded (K = 1,000, M = 1,000,000 and B = 1,000,000,000); the last bid price for that stock, which is considered its price until there is a new bid; an up- or down- arrow that indicates if the stock's price is down or up from where it started the trading day; and the change amount, or the difference in price from the previous trading day's closing price. - 23221

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