Stock tickers can be confusing to new investors. They are a ubiquitous part of the financial markets and are always seen on the websites of financial institutions such as the Singapore Exchange and banks, and also on television channels such as Bloomberg and ChannelNewsAsia.
When the segment on the stock market appears in the news, you would notice that only a few stocks are featured. It is impossible to feature all stocks traded because there are just too many of them. The stocks that appear tend to be the most traded within the trading day, or the ones with the most drastic price change.
A stock ticker is like a report for various stocks in the market. It is constantly updated throughout the day, although there would usually be a real-time delay.
For professional day traders, obtaining the real time updated price would usually require a fee for the platform. However, given the easy accessibility of online platforms these days, the delay in market data is marginal for most of us retail investors.
The stock ticker reports any change in prices, sometimes with other information such as trading volume.
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Here is an example of how a stock ticker report would read.
Source: Bloomberg
Colours
Two colours are usually seen: red and green. Green indicates that a particular stock is trading higher than the previous day’s close; while red tells us that the stock is trading lower than the previous day’s close.
Your portfolio’s indicator can be indicating red on green depending on the rise or fall in the capital gain/loss you have sustained in your investment duration.
Components
Ticker Symbol:
A unique symbol is given to a company for identification. It represents the company when their securities are traded publicly. It is a code around one to four letters long.
Price Traded:
Price per share for the specific company.
Direction:
It indicates whether a particular stock is trading at a higher or lower price compared to the previous closing day.
Change Amount:
Reflects the difference in price compared to the previous closing day.
Percentage Change:
The difference in price in percentage compared to the previous closing day. If the percentage change is drastic, it is usually due to some good or bad news about the company.
After Thought
While only watching stock tickers is not the best way to make investing decision, it does give retail investors a very quick summary of the market sentiment.
If you are interested to invest in any stocks, there is more homework to be done aside from just seeing what is flashed on the screen. This includes analyzing the financial ratios from the annual reports of the companies you are interested in, and keeping track of the latest news about the firm.
Read Also: Five Reasons You Should Ignore That Stock Analyst On TV Who Says “Buy”
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