The technology may have changed over the years, but short-term traders in today’s online market environment still use the same principles to manage trade entries and exits. Now, however, they use the time and sales screen instead of the ticker tape to find patterns in stock prices.

Time and sales is the real-time record of executed trades. It is typically provided by market data vendors and trading platforms and has become a staple on the trading screens of intraday (especially Nasdaq Level II) traders. While some traders rarely consult their time and sales screens, others know it reveals important price dynamics that do not appear on charts (or do not appear as quickly on them).