# Ticker Tape

To download a list of trades from a specific day from Alpaca, make an account on https://alpaca.markets/ and set APCA_API_KEY_ID and APCA_API_SECRET_KEY environment variables.

Then use `ticker_tape.py` to download and then sort them:

```
python ticker_tape.py --symbol-file sp100_symbols.txt --start 2026-06-12 --raw > trades_unsorted.csv
sort -t, -k1 trades_unsorted.csv > trades_sorted.csv
```

To generate ESC/POS commands for the receipt printer use `print_tape.py`:

```
uv run python print_tape.py -o ticker_tape.escpos trades_sorted.csv
```

Defaults to 10,000 trades per escpos file, cutting the receipt paper every 1000 stocks.

1000 trades translates into about roughly 10 feet of receipt paper.