Modern stock markets are over four hundred years old, but only recently, owing to the information technology revolution, has in-depth market data become widely available to all market participants, including small-time retailers trading out of their own home. This article looks at some of the core aspects of real-time stock market information, and how you can use it to better your performance in the market.
History
Founded in 1602, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange was the world's first modern stock market. The London Stock Exchange was founded almost one hundred years later, and the New York Stock Exchange almost one hundred years after that, with the signing of the Buttonwood Agreement. Early stock market information was relayed entirely by word of mouth or newspapers, and only reached a small number of people. These players were either exchange members or well-connected market participants located in close physical proximity to the stock markets.
Significance
Real-time stock market exchange information is critical to investors because it allows them to instantaneously track what individual stocks or entire indexes are doing at any given time. This allows them to make rapid-fire buy and sell decisions, whereas only 20 years ago they had to wait hours, if not days, to receive updates on prices or how their positions were doing, and a similar amount of time for their orders to be received and processed.
Features
Some of the primary features of real-time stock market information are automated order routing and processing systems, interconnected electronic communication networks, and the broad availability of the Internet, connecting both professional and non-professional market participants. Whereas in years past all orders had to go through a human broker or floor trader, computerized systems now handle almost all transactions in a fraction of the time.
Function
The primary function of real-time stock market information is to allow traders, money managers, brokers, dealers and market makers to keep track of prices accurately and almost instantaneously. This allows all market players to be better informed on pricing developments across the market, which in turn helps them make better decisions based on actual facts rather than ill-informed conjecture and gut feelings.
Size
Real-time stock information is almost ubiquitously available around the developed world, including emerging market centers like Eastern Europe and Asia. This information is available to anybody with a computer and Internet connection, covering hundreds of millions of people. As the Internet expands ever further, including to poorer, previously underserved markets, the number of people who can keep track of and participate in global stock markets is likely to continue expanding, limited only by regional economic factors.
Theories/Speculation
Some market professionals have suggested that the universality of real-time information has erased many of the previous advantages enjoyed by market insiders, who used to have a monopoly on such data and could exploit it via arbitrage, front-running, or other sophisticated strategies designed to take advantage of small price differentials. This has led to an overall improvement in conditions for small investors, who used to be disadvantaged by data lags, artificially inflated bid/ask spreads, and imprecise order fills.
Warnings
Although real-time market information allows an investor to be informed about what the stock market or his equity investments are doing at any given time, this knowledge by itself will not make one a better trader or investor. In fact, the abundance of information can have precisely the opposite effect, overloading an investor with so much information that he doesn't know what to make of it all.
Significance
Real-time stock market exchange information is critical to investors because it allows them to instantaneously track what individual stocks or entire indexes are doing at any given time. This allows them to make rapid-fire buy and sell decisions, whereas only 20 years ago they had to wait hours, if not days, to receive updates on prices or how their positions were doing, and a similar amount of time for their orders to be received and processed.
Features
Some of the primary features of real-time stock market information are automated order routing and processing systems, interconnected electronic communication networks, and the broad availability of the Internet, connecting both professional and non-professional market participants. Whereas in years past all orders had to go through a human broker or floor trader, computerized systems now handle almost all transactions in a fraction of the time.
Function
The primary function of real-time stock market information is to allow traders, money managers, brokers, dealers and market makers to keep track of prices accurately and almost instantaneously. This allows all market players to be better informed on pricing developments across the market, which in turn helps them make better decisions based on actual facts rather than ill-informed conjecture and gut feelings.
Size
Real-time stock information is almost ubiquitously available around the developed world, including emerging market centers like Eastern Europe and Asia. This information is available to anybody with a computer and Internet connection, covering hundreds of millions of people. As the Internet expands ever further, including to poorer, previously underserved markets, the number of people who can keep track of and participate in global stock markets is likely to continue expanding, limited only by regional economic factors.
Theories/Speculation
Some market professionals have suggested that the universality of real-time information has erased many of the previous advantages enjoyed by market insiders, who used to have a monopoly on such data and could exploit it via arbitrage, front-running, or other sophisticated strategies designed to take advantage of small price differentials. This has led to an overall improvement in conditions for small investors, who used to be disadvantaged by data lags, artificially inflated bid/ask spreads, and imprecise order fills.
Warnings
Although real-time market information allows an investor to be informed about what the stock market or his equity investments are doing at any given time, this knowledge by itself will not make one a better trader or investor. In fact, the abundance of information can have precisely the opposite effect, overloading an investor with so much information that he doesn't know what to make of it all.
