A record of the
transactions occurring on an
exchange on a given
trading day, updated in real time or with only a slight delay. Before electronic
tickers became common, most records of trading were printed out on strips of paper known as tape. It is more common now to refer to an exchange's live record as a ticker. When tape was common,
trading volume sometimes became so heavy for a
security that the tape publicly announcing quotes was delayed by a significant amount of time, usually a minute or two. This was called a
tape is late situation.