Also called the tape, prints
Time and sales
The running list of executed trades: time, price, size. Reading it is watching who is actually paying up, as opposed to the book, which is what people say they would do.
Updated 2026-09-16
Time and sales, the tape, is the list of trades as they happen: the time, the price, the size, and the venue. The book is intention; the tape is action. A price level that holds on the book and then prints heavily on the tape is being defended; one that prints through without a fight was never real.
The classic way to read it is size and pace. Prints clustering at the ask are buyers paying up; prints at the bid are sellers hitting out. A run of large prints at one price is an institution working an order. The desk colours each print by the tick rule and marks any print five times the running median as a block trade.
See also
- Tick rule — A way to guess which side started a trade: a print above the previous one is called a buy, below it a sell, equal keeps the last call. A proxy, since the feed does not say who crossed.
- Order book — The list of resting buy and sell orders at each price. The inside of it is the bid and the ask; the rest is depth, which the free IEX feed does not publish.
- Block trade — A single trade far larger than the tape's usual print, typically an institution moving size. The paper desk marks any print five times the running median.
- Liquidity — How easily something can be sold near its quoted price. A liquid stock absorbs your order; an illiquid one moves against you as you fill it.
Educational content, not investment advice. Angie explains how a valuation is built so you can judge it yourself. What you do with that is your call.
