About the TradeStation Ticker Bar

The TradeStation Ticker Bar allows you to keep track of what is going on in the market by offering real-time quotes & news headline updates. When launching the TradeStation Ticker Bar, the Hot Lists ticker automatically displays and updates the ranking of symbols every 30 seconds. Once the TradeStation Ticker Bar is launched, the News and Quotes tickers can be added and customized to the Ticker Bar for your personal preference.

Since the TradeStation Ticker Bar is considered its own separate TradeStation window, it does not contain menu bars or toolbars. The Ticker Bar depends on the TradeStation Network as its data source, and run independently of the TradeStation Desktop, so it can be used without opening the platform. In order to run the Ticker Bar independently, it is necessary to log into the TradeStation Network if the platform is not running. When working offline, tickers display data stored in the computer's cache. However, if you create a ticker while offline, the ticker will not display anything until you are connected to the TradeStation Network again.

Open the TradeStation Ticker Bar by using the desktop File > New Application > Ticker Bar menu sequence. By default, the Ticker Bar displays across the bottom of the screen.

The Hot Lists ticker is displayed in the TradeStation Ticker Bar. Using the shortcut menu, select New Ticker > Quotes News or Hot Lists to display the desired ticker bar.
To delete a ticker, use the shortcut menu, and select Delete Ticker. The selected ticker will be removed from the TradeStation Ticker Bar.

How do you use it?

Creating and customizing the ticker bar settings is done from the shortcut menu. You can change the ticker bar display settings by adding/removing tickers and ticker fields, modify general, font and color settings, and float, dock, or auto hide/auto-close the ticker bar. When you see a ticker scroll by that interests you, double-click the desired symbol or news story to open a Quick Quote or News window. In addition, you can control the speed and direction of the ticker.

Tickers

Ticker is a term we use in today's industry, which comes from the ticker tape machine that was invented in the 1800's. 'Tick' derives from the tapping or ticking sound the machine made, and 'tape' comes from the type of narrow paper used that the 'tick' was printed on. In the 1900's, ticker symbols were created to represent an abbreviated company name. Ticker machines became obsolete in the 1960's when the technology of computer networks evolved. The information that ticker tapes displayed in the past remains the same today.

Tickers convey a unique set of characters that are is used to identify the stock symbol for a company. The stock symbol is usually an abbreviation of the company's name. Stocks showing trades that are higher than the previous day's close are displayed in green. Trades lower than the previous day's close are shown in red, and stocks that remained unchanged are blue or white.

Hot Lists Ticker

The Hot Lists ticker is the default for the TradeStation Ticker Bar. It displays the top securities that meet a specific set of criteria, such as the highest volume of trades within a certain exchange. Hot Lists tickers display the same information that you can get in a Hot Lists window but in a scrolling ticker format. Hot Lists tickers are updated every 30 seconds; this includes all price information as well as the rank order. For more information, see About the Hot Lists Window.

TradeStation offers Hot Lists tickers based on the AMEX, ARCX, Nasdaq, and NYSE in combination with popular market activity lists. A label noting the exchange and activity list that a Hot Lists ticker is based on is displayed at the beginning of the list.

Quotes Tickers

Quotes tickers offer real-time quote information such as last price, net change, and total volume. When you add the Quotes ticker to the TradeStation Ticker bar, you will be prompted to search or add individual symbols, or use one of the industry standard or index lists included with TradeStation, or use your own custom symbol list.

Every five minutes, Hot Lists and Quotes tickers display your connection status to the TradeStation Network. It is shown as either Online with a green light or Offline with a red light. The SmartLaunch feature is available from the Hot Lists and Quotes tickers so you can quickly create other windows, such as a Chart Analysis, Market Depth, Matrix, etc., for the selected symbol.

News Tickers

News tickers provide a way to monitor real-time headlines from multiple news sources. Once you add the News ticker to your TradeStation Ticker bar, you will be prompted to select all headlines for the current day, by symbol or symbol lists, or use a keyword from the News filters dialog.

The headlines are color-coded to indicate if the headline is scrolling by for the first time (indicated by a blue dot) and if you have read the story (indicated by a gray dot). Unread stories are shown in white text, while stories that you have read are displayed in gray text. You can modify the colors used to indicate read/unread stories by using the color and font settings.

If you want more information about a news story in the News ticker, double-click to open it, and the TradeStation News Story dialog is displayed. From here, you can copy and paste, save, print, search, and use the customization settings provided in the toolbar.