What Is a Ticker?

If you've ever watched a financial news channel, you will have undoubtedly seen the endless scroll of stocks and commodities rolling past at dizzying speed at the bottom of the screen.

Tickers help traders keep on top of the latest price information — and they also have a place in the cryptocurrency sector.

These tools offer an at-a-glance insight into how a cryptocurrency has been fluctuating during intraday trading. 

The information provided includes the symbol, which is the abbreviated name for the cryptocurrency. For example, Bitcoin would become BTC and Ether would be renamed as ETH.

Also included is the latest quoted price for the asset in question, alongside a figure that shows how much the coin has gone up or down in cash and percentage terms. To make it even easier to understand, text is colored green if the cryptocurrency has posted gains, and red if it has clocked up a loss.