A classroom trading tape: count shares, executions and traded value

Act out a bounded trading tape

Plan around 25 minutes and assign buyer, seller and recorder roles. Both trading roles display each completed card, but it receives only one record row. All cards concern the same fictional share, venue and period in SEK. There are no fees or additional trades. This is a simplified executed transaction list rather than an order book.

Three cards are executed: 15 shares at SEK 80, 25 at SEK 82 and ten at SEK 79. A fourth card is an open order for twelve at SEK 83 and stays outside the tape. Nasdaq defines volume using traded shares or contracts. Here we count precisely the shares in the three completed rows.

If the table does not fit, scroll it sideways.

Ask a counterparty to check volume

Volume is 15 + 25 + 10 = 50 shares. The buyers’ 50 and sellers’ 50 describe the two sides of those same trades. A total of 100 counts each executed share twice. The number of transaction rows is three, a different measure from the number of shares. Keep these fields separate in the record.

Ask the recorder to explain why the open order’s twelve shares are excluded. An intention to trade is not an execution in this model. Keep that order card with an open label so a checker can trace the decision. If it later receives an execution card, the rules for the new period must first be specified.

Use each row’s own price to calculate value

Traded value is 15 × 80 + 25 × 82 + 10 × 79 = SEK 4,040. The last price, 79, multiplied by volume 50 gives 3,950, a different total. Our tape’s volume-weighted average price is 4,040 / 50 = SEK 80.80. An ordinary unweighted average of three prices answers another question.

The SEK 4,040 is the tape’s combined transaction amount. It is neither the company’s sales revenue nor the participants’ profit. The participants’ acquisition costs and the company’s income statement have not been supplied. The group’s presentation must therefore leave both investor result and company revenue unknown instead of inventing those figures.

Exchange records and correct a misleading headline

Give the checker the headline The company generated SEK 4,040 in revenue on the exchange. Ask the group to replace it with Three executed share trades had traded value of SEK 4,040. Check that 50 shares and three executions also have separate fields. Precise wording lets a reader identify the evidence behind each number.

Use Investiq’s company-search guide as the next product step towards the described company page and price development. The classroom tape is its own paper dataset and requires no volume report or export in the app. The volume-and-revenue lesson explains the terms; this activity practises how the roles jointly audit a transaction record.