What Is A Stock Ticker?

Similar to what you see on television news programs, a stock ticker keeps you informed about the most current stock prices. It is a unobtrusive tool, usually a bar of scrolling data found at the bottom of the television screen that can be utilized while viewing other information. Such a tool makes it easier for individuals to stay informed while tending to other business. On a stock ticker, you can usually find the following information: a ticker symbol, shares traded information, price traded information, change direction data, and the change amount data. Most stock tickers only reveal information about companies with widely held stocks or companies stocks that are extremely busy or have a significant price change either up or down. This is because there are so many companies that offer stock for trading: a ticker is a scrolling form of information and it would be fruitless to have to wait for the information to scroll through thousands of references referring to stock trading data. The ticker symbols are usually three or four letter abbreviations used to identify a company. Each company participating in the stock market has a set of letters assigned to represent it and no abbreviations are duplicated. For example, if you have purchased stock in Microsoft you want to be able to monitor the company's stock value. The ticker symbol for Microsoft is MFST. The number of letters in a ticker symbol signifies what exchange the company trades on. For instance, tickers symbols containing two letters trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), those with three letters trade on the NYSE or the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and tickers with four and five letter combinations trade on NASDAQ: Bear in mind, that mutual bonds are denoted with the letter X. Immediately following the ticker symbol, you can find the shares traded, which is usually represented by a letter: K=1000, M= 1,000,000, B= 1, 000, 000, 000, and indicates the volume of trade being quoted. After this, price traded information is revealed which informs the viewer the price per share for the trade. The ticker then reveals the change of direction data, which tells you whether or not the trading price was higher or lower than the previous day's closing price, and the change

amount: the difference between the immediate price per share and the prior day's closing price. On some scrolling tickers, several colors are used to indicate what various stocks are trading at: whether it is higher, lower, or unchanged from the previous days' closing. For example, the color red (often the color considered the symbol of danger or warning) indicates that stock is trading at a lower price per share in the previous days ' closing price, while the color green signifies the stock is trading at a higher price than the previous days ' closing price. Likewise, the colors white or blue indicate that the stock price has remained the same trading price as it was previously.