There are numerous special types of stock tickers, each one with their own characteristics, but they also share several characteristics. The most general features are the company symbol, the value of the company’s shares, and the direction in which the stock price is moving.

As mentioned, there are scores of special ticker software available for your desktop, so you too can have a tape stock ticker running on your computer. In General desktop stock tickers are rather small programs, that does not use a lot of RAM or CPU, so you can continue your work. Often the stock tickers can be configured to alert you if the price of a chosen stock move outside a predefined area or the stock price changes swiftly. The desktop stock ticker can be downloaded from a lot of of the online stock trading companies. Since the tickers often are very small applications, the download and installation is fast and easy done.

Real Time or Near Real Time?

Many free desktop stock tickers shows the stock prices in “near real-time”, meaning that the prices are delayed – most often 15 to 20 minutes. If you are a customer with an online stock trading company however, you can normally get real-time prices – this is evidently a enormous benefit, especially if you are a day trader, who buys and sells regularly the same shares though out the day. In this case you have to know the exact price, since you make your money on very small movements. If you are a long term investor the delayed prices are of less importance.

The NASDAQ Toolbar – This free stock ticker toolbar for Windows XP offers many great features including a one-click stock lookup and of course, an auto-updating, scrolling stock ticker that displays in your browser no matter web page you’re on.

The NASDAQ Market Ticker – This stock market ticker allows you to monitor your investments right on your desktop. The NASDAQ Market Ticker includes quotes, net change, percent change for NASDAQ, Amex, NYSE, and OTCBB stocks; updates to key market indices, most active lists for NASDAQ, NYSE and Amex — all based on your personal selections or our two pre-configured choices; and the top 10 news headlines.

The NASDAQ Stock Widget is a portable portfolio ticker you can save to your desktop, your favorite social networking site, or any web page. Also displays Most Active, Advancers, and Decliners from NASDAQ, NYSE, and AMEX. Try the Stock Widget.

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