Ticker Tape

30 août█  OVERVIEW


This indicator creates a dynamic, scrolling display of multiple securities' latest prices and daily changes, similar to the ticker tapes on financial news channels and the Ticker Tape Widget. It shows realtime market information for a user-specified list of symbols along the bottom of the main chart pane.



█  CONCEPTS


Ticker tape

Traditionally, a ticker tape was a continuous, narrow strip of paper that displayed stock prices, trade volumes, and other financial and security information. Invented by Edward A. Calahan in 1867, ticker tapes were the earliest method for electronically transmitting live stock market data.

A machine known as a "stock ticker" received stock information via telegraph, printing abbreviated company names, transaction prices, and other information in a linear sequence on the paper as new data came in. The term "ticker" in the name comes from the "tick" sound the machine made as it printed stock information. The printed tape provided a running record of trading activity, allowing market participants to stay informed on recent market conditions without needing to be on the exchange floor.

In modern times, electronic displays have replaced physical ticker tapes. However, the term "ticker" remains persistent in today's financial lexicon. Nowadays, ticker symbols and digital tickers appear on financial news networks, trading platforms, and brokerage/exchange websites, offering live updates on market information. Modern electronic displays, thankfully, do not rely on telegraph updates to operate.



█  FEATURES


Requesting a list of securities

The "Symbol list" text box in the indicator's "Settings/Inputs" tab allows users to list up to 40 symbols or ticker Identifiers. The indicator dynamically requests and displays information for each one. To add symbols to the list, enter their names separated by commas. For example: "BITSTAMP:BTCUSD, TSLA, MSFT".

Each item in the comma-separated list must represent a valid symbol or ticker ID. If the list includes an invalid symbol, the script will raise a runtime error.

To specify a broker/exchange for a symbol, include its name as a prefix with a colon in the "EXCHANGE:SYMBOL" format. If a symbol in the list does not specify an exchange prefix, the indicator selects the most commonly used exchange when requesting the data.


Realtime updates

This indicator requests symbol descriptions, current market prices, daily price changes, and daily change percentages for each ticker from the user-specified list of symbols or ticker identifiers. It receives updated information for each security after new realtime ticks on the current chart.

After a new realtime price update, the indicator updates the values shown in the tape display and their colors.

The color of the percentages in the tape depends on the change in price from the previous day. The text is green when the daily change is positive, red when the value is negative, and gray when the value is 0.

The color of each displayed price depends on the change in value from the last recorded update, not the change over a daily period. For example, if a security's price increases in the latest update, the ticker tape shows that price with green text, even if the current price is below the previous day's closing price. This behavior allows users to monitor realtime directional changes in the requested securities.

NOTE: Pine scripts execute on realtime bars when new ticks are available in the chart's data feed. If no new updates are available from the chart's realtime feed, it may cause a delay in the data the indicator receives.


Ticker motion

This indicator's tape display shows a list of security information that incrementally scrolls horizontally from right to left after new chart updates, providing a dynamic visual stream of current market data. The scrolling effect works by using a counter that increments across successive intervals after realtime ticks to control the offset of each listed security. Users can set the initial scroll offset with the "Offset" input in the "Settings/Inputs" tab.

The scrolling rate of the ticker tape display depends on the realtime ticks available from the chart's data feed. Using the indicator on a chart with frequent realtime updates results in smoother scrolling. If no new realtime ticks are available in the chart's feed, the ticker tape does not move. Users can also deactivate the scrolling feature by toggling the "Running" input in the indicator's settings.



█  FOR Pine Script™ CODERS


• This script utilizes dynamic requests to iteratively fetch information from multiple contexts using a single request.security() instance in the code. Previously, `request.*()` functions were not allowed within the local scopes of loops or conditional structures, and most `request.*()` function parameters, excluding `expression`, required arguments of a simple or weaker qualified type. The new `dynamic_requests` parameter in script declaration statements enables more flexibility in how scripts can use `request.*()` calls. When its value is `true`, all `request.*()` functions can accept series arguments for the parameters that define their requested contexts, and `request.*()` functions can execute within local scopes. See the Dynamic requests section of the Pine Script™ User Manual to learn more.

• Scripts can execute up to 40 unique `request.*()` function calls. A `request.*()` call is unique only if the script does not already call the same function with the same arguments. See this section of the User Manual's Limitations page for more information.

• This script converts a comma-separated "string" list of symbols or ticker IDs into an array. It then loops through this array, dynamically requesting data from each symbol's context and storing the results within a collection of custom `Tape` objects. Each `Tape` instance holds information about a symbol, which the script uses to populate the table that displays the ticker tape.

• This script uses the varip keyword to declare variables and `Tape` fields that update across ticks on unconfirmed bars without rolling back. This behavior allows the script to color the tape's text based on the latest price movements and change the locations of the table cells after realtime updates without reverting. See the `varip` section of the User Manual to learn more about using this keyword.

• Typically, when requesting higher-timeframe data with request.security() using barmerge.lookahead_on as the `lookahead` argument, the `expression` argument should use the history-referencing operator to offset the series, preventing lookahead bias on historical bars. However, the request.security() call in this script uses barmerge.lookahead_on without offsetting the `expression` because the script only displays results for the latest historical bar and all realtime bars, where there is no future information to leak into the past. Instead, using this call on those bars ensures each request fetches the most recent data available from each context.

• The request.security() instance in this script includes a `calc_bars_count` argument to specify that each request retrieves only a minimal number of bars from the end of each symbol's historical data feed. The script does not need to request all the historical data for each symbol because it only shows results on the last chart bar that do not depend on the entire time series. In this case, reducing the retrieved bars in each request helps minimize resource usage without impacting the calculated results.



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