2. The terminal and your workspace

Tickers, listings and asset classes

The same company can trade under several tickers on several exchanges, so Gloom lets you pick the exact listing with a suffix or a search and filter by asset class.

  • 5 min
  • 3 questions
  • Lesson 3 of 9

Why you would care

Are you looking at the right thing? You type VOD and get a price in dollars. A colleague in London types VOD and sees pence. You are both right: Vodafone trades in New York and in London. Before you read any number, check which listing you opened. It takes two seconds and avoids silly mistakes.

The idea from scratch

A listing is one company's shares trading on one exchange, under one ticker, in one currency. Big companies often have several:

  • A primary listing on their home exchange (Vodafone in London).
  • Secondary listings abroad, or a depositary receipt: a certificate traded in New York that stands for shares held abroad. That is how many foreign companies trade in the US.

Each listing has its own price, currency, hours and volume. Prices of the same company on two exchanges stay close, because traders buy the cheap one and sell the expensive one until the gap closes.

Writing the exact listing

Gloom accepts two ways to point at one listing:

You typeMeans
VODThe default listing for those letters (for US letters, the US one)
VOD.LVOD with the London suffix .L
VOD:LSEVOD on the exchange called LSE

Common suffixes you will meet: .L London, .DE Germany (Xetra), .PA Paris, .AS Amsterdam, .SW Switzerland, .T Tokyo, .HK Hong Kong, .TO Toronto, .AX Australia. US listings have no suffix.

Asset classes

Tickers are not only stocks. Every search result carries a class:

ClassWhat it isExample search
EQEquity: a company's sharesAAPL
ETFExchange-traded fundSPY ETF
IDXIndex (a measuring rule, not tradable)S&P 500 IDX
FUTFutureES FUT
CURCurrency pair or coinEURUSD CUR, BTC CUR
OPTOptionAAPL OPT (when a connected broker returns contracts)

Add the class at the end of a search to keep only that kind. ES alone finds Eversource, a utility; ES FUT finds the E-mini S&P 500 future.

Diagram: You type letters leads to Search; Search leads to Only that asset class (class word at the end); Search leads to That exact listing (suffix .L or :LSE); Search leads to Default listing first, other listings below (letters only).
Wide diagram: scroll sideways to see all of it.

See it in Gloom

Gloom screenshot: The header of an overview pane
The header of an overview pane. The exchange in brackets and the market status sit right after the name. Historical example.

open ittype DES NVDA, or press ` `` (backtick) for ticker search and type a name.

  1. NVIDIA Corporation: the company name. Check it, especially for short tickers.
  2. (NASDAQ): the exchange of this listing. A London listing would show London here, with prices in pence.
  3. CLOSED: the market status of that exchange right now. A London listing can be open while New York is closed.
  4. $223.82: the price, in the listing's currency.

When you search letters that exist on several exchanges, results are grouped. A search for Vodafone looks like this (from the command line, trimmed):

Primary Listing
VOD    Vodafone Group Public Limited Company  NASDAQ   EQUITY
Other Listings
VOD    Vodafone Group Public Limited Company  LSE      Common Stock
VODI   Vodafone Group Public Limited Company  XETRA    Common Stock
VODPF  Vodafone Group Public Limited Company  OTC      Common Stock

Same company, four listings, three different tickers. Pick the row; the pane keeps that listing.

Practice and recap

Try it3 tasks
  • Write the ticker for Vodafone in London, two ways. (VOD.L and VOD:LSE.)
  • You want the S&P 500 future, not Eversource. What do you type? (ES FUT, in newer versions.)
  • In the screenshot, which exchange is NVIDIA listed on? (NASDAQ.)
Common mistakes4 mistakes
  • Comparing a London price in pence with a New York price in dollars and seeing a "huge gap".
  • Reading an index (IDX) as something you can buy. Use an ETF that tracks it.
  • Forgetting the suffix for foreign stocks and landing on a thin US over-the-counter line.
  • Assuming the same ticker means the same company everywhere.
Check yourself3 questions
  1. What is a depositary receipt?
  2. What does .T at the end of a ticker mean?
  3. How do you keep only currency results in a search for EURUSD?
Answers
  1. A certificate traded in one country that stands for shares of a foreign company held abroad.
  2. The Tokyo listing.
  3. Type EURUSD CUR.
Words in this lesson5 words
listing
One company's shares on one exchange, under one ticker and currency.
primary listing
The listing on the company's home exchange.
depositary receipt
A certificate traded in one country that stands for foreign shares.
suffix
The letters after a dot that name the exchange, like .L for London.
asset class
The kind of instrument: equity, ETF, index, future, currency, option.

Educational material about reading market data, not investment advice.