Visualizing Financial Data

Chapter 5 Trading

Tickers, quotes, and watchlists are the three standard communication tools that provide us with up-to-the-minute information on the current state of a security or index. With various global markets to keep track of, these industry displays focus on just a few data points to succinctly report market price. Staff tasked with identifying value in a security universe must have continuous access to the current price of any identified security of interest, and in most cases, continuous access to the pricing of securities compete for the analyst’s attention. Tickers, quotes, and watchlists communicate fundamental information to assess the state of an investment as the markets fluctuate.

Today’s displays show ticker, quote, and watchlist data in undifferentiated numeric matrices, seas of numbers with neither hierarchy nor helpful highlighting. Staff’s ability to monitor and react to such data is compromised in this type of environment. In this chapter, we propose expanding the role of such displays from undifferentiated number dumps to richer, more effective tools that can increase awareness and allow staff to capitalize more rapidly on the information. As consumers of this basic data, we often need to act and act quickly.

This chapter provides out-of-the-gate solutions to improve market monitoring. We take a two-fold approach by asking 1) Which data points are ...