Tape Is Late

You knew a dude in college everyone called "Tape." Guy always kept people waiting. It led to the inside joke catch phrase: "Tape is late."

This definition isn't about that guy (nor his girlfriend, who had the same nickname, but when you heard that she was late, it was a completely different situation). Thie one's about stock trading.

Usually, the stock market kind of plugs along. Buying and selling happens, but not so much that things get excited...just a bunch of people going about their normal workdays. But then, sometimes, things get frothy. Volume spikes. People are buying and selling like crazy, sweating through their suits, holding two phones up to their heads, shouting instructions until they go hoarse.

One of the consequences of these high-volume situations is that the ticker quotes can start to lag. They fall behind the price action as it happens in real time. At that point, one of the things the sweaty traders might hoarsely yell into their two phones: "Tape is late! Tape is late!" Tape here being a reference to the old-fashioned ticker tape used on those antiquated stock ticker machines. They don't actually use those on Wall Street anymore, but the name stuck. So...when the tape is late, the quotes aren't keeping up with the action.