Stock market ticker is used to keep track of the share price of the companies that are listed in that particular exchange. Earlier stock market tickers were only put up in the exchanges and brokerage houses. As technology evolved, the stock market ticker started appearing on TV and soon these tickers were available on the internet provided as a service by various firms. Initially these tickers were available at a price to those who trade over the internet. Now it is a free service by various news channels and the websites of brokerages and exchanges. The power of technology has truly revolutionised the way things work.

Stock market tickers now come with other advanced features that you can use as you use the ticker. You can keep track of the prices of the shares of stocks that you have in your portfolio in real time. These tickers also give you information about the highs and lows of the share price during the day and the volume of shares traded during the day. You can keep track of the networth of your investment in the stock market. There are also portfolio management features in these stock tickers that will help manage you your portfolio so that you can make maximum returns in the stock market. As and when the stock enters your buy range, you can buy the stock and reap the benefits of technology.

The tickers that are used these days are judged on the speed with which they relay the information to you and the ease of use. It has to be quite user friendly and the prices of any share of stock should be easily accessible by you. This has to happen quickly too as these days the stock prices move up or down in a matter of minutes.

There are a lot of tickers out there that are really easy to use and that provide good speed. But if you develop a problem with your ticker then you will be banking on the customer service of the firm to bail you out. Customer service can be gauged only by experiencing it firsthand. If you are new to the stock market and you are just learning to use the ticker, then it is better to use the ticker of your brokerage firm if it provides one or the ticker of a reputed firm. As you get used to the various terms and get used to the stock market functioning, you can try out the various free tickers that are available on the internet.

It could be argued that even with the wild gyrations of the past few months, many were still in denial about the state of the financial markets. Last week, fear was rife as traders, investors, and the man on the street could no longer deny the magnitude of the global sell off. Some commentators are referring to it as the great crash of 2008. Certainly, there have been bigger one day falls in percentage terms, but the scale and unyielding nature of the October’s sell off of is unique. You only had to take your eyes off a market like the Dow Jones for a second, and it will have moved 100 points in either direction. This level of volatility is almost unheard of. For days markets have continued to show signs of complete surrender, days that may have become capitulation low points in the past, yet the sell off still continued. People looking for the bounce that often follows such waterfall sell offs, have so far unfortunately been too early and quite wrong.

The VIX options volatility index, often referred to as the ‘fear gauge’, has spiked to levels even higher than those registered during the height of the dotcom bubble collapse. This is a broad decline with no one sector out on its own in leading declines. Financials are down of course, but so too is the energy sector, as oil continues to break down. Last year around the quiet period and intermediate high of August, the FTSE had a daily range of around 60 points. Last week it was moving that much every 15 minutes. These are extraordinary times and many technical indicators are flashing at levels never seen before. At best, central governments are hoping that the coordinated rate bomb and localized interventions have stopped Armageddon, there is now no hope of the UK, US, Irish and Spanish economies avoiding recession.