How to read MarketScope market data
A practical guide to MarketScope: compare markets, read price timestamps and sources, interpret heatmap colors, and distinguish missing data from zero returns.
Written by Oxtane · Editorial revision:
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Start with a market question
- Open the market overview to see stocks, FX, crypto, commodities and ETFs together. A cross-market comparison is a starting point; markets do not all trade at the same time.
- Choose a category for the question you are checking. The semiconductor, DRAM and optics boards separate related supply-chain themes. Country stock pages, FX and crypto pages keep their own coverage.
- Check the instrument’s source, update time, currency and data status before comparing its price or return. Use the chart and instrument details for context rather than treating every displayed value as a simultaneous live quote.
- Share the category’s stable URL when you want someone else to open the same market theme. Personal board selections and query filters are not separate editorial market pages.
What does the percentage change mean?
For a quote with a valid previous close, the basic comparison is (current price − previous close) ÷ previous close × 100. The quote provider and market determine the available reference point. A Binance Spot 24-hour ticker instead describes a rolling 24-hour window.
A stock’s change from its previous close and a cryptocurrency’s rolling 24-hour change cover different periods. Compare the reference period as well as the number. These figures are not portfolio returns and do not include your execution price, fees or FX exposure.
Update time, stale data and unavailable values
The page may contain instruments with different update times. A page reload or receipt time does not prove that a quote was updated at that moment. Market sessions, provider delays and caching can all affect freshness.
Check the displayed data state. An unavailable value is not zero, and a stale price should not be read as a fresh one. If a provider does not supply a usable value or timestamp, there may be no current quote to compare. Opening another view cannot guarantee that the upstream data has changed.
How to read the market heatmap
Tile area is based on the absolute percentage change from the previous close, with a small minimum size for flat or unavailable values. Area does not represent market capitalization or trading volume. Green indicates a gain and red a loss. Quote times can differ between instruments.
How to read the cryptocurrency heatmap
The crypto heatmap shows verified Binance Spot assets in equal-area tiles, ordered by market capitalization. Green means a gain and red means a loss; stronger color represents a larger 24-hour move. Missing returns are distinguished from a 0% return.
Equal tile area does not mean equal market capitalization, trading volume or portfolio weight. Market-cap ordering and the color’s return measure are separate. The heatmap’s coverage is a selected market view, not every token or every trading venue. Use the instrument details and search when checking a particular asset.
Semiconductors, DRAM and optics: how the boards differ
The semiconductor view groups companies across equipment, materials, design, foundry and related exposure. The DRAM and memory view focuses on memory makers and supporting equipment, testing, packaging and materials. Optics covers optical networking, lasers, photonics, imaging and related suppliers.
A company can belong to more than one theme. Membership describes the selected comparison basket; it does not imply a pure-play business, a recommendation, equal economic exposure or a complete list of every relevant company. Read the page’s coverage explanation before comparing countries or themes.
Currencies and trading sessions
Check both the instrument’s trading currency and the selected display currency. A converted display value is a comparison aid, not necessarily the price offered by its trading venue. Currency conversion and the instrument’s own price move are different effects.
Markets in Japan, Europe and the United States have different sessions, holidays and available quotes. A closed market can legitimately retain its latest available session value while another market is open. A global board is not a synchronized exchange feed.
How to read the economic calendar
Timed events use Japan Standard Time (JST, UTC+9), including on the English page, so the calendar day can differ from the local release date. Date-only entries keep the supplied date and show “Time not supplied”; they have no confirmed release time.
Actual, forecast and previous values appear when supplied by the source. A dash (—) means the value is unavailable, not zero. An empty day can reflect the country or importance filters and the available source coverage; check the source status before concluding that no releases are scheduled.
Supporting FRED series show observations with their own dates. These reference values are separate from the selected day’s release events. The page update time describes data collection and does not establish that every release or revision is included.
Where MarketScope data comes from
Public source labels supported by the board include Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Finance Japan, Binance Spot, CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and Frankfurter / ECB. The actual provider depends on the instrument and view. This list is not a claim that every provider supplies every market or that every source is active for every request.
Use the source shown on the instrument and the methodology shown on the page. Cryptocurrency rankings, market-cap data and spot prices may have different sources or update times. External provider documentation explains the original data fields; MarketScope’s visible page explains how the view uses them.
What MarketScope does and does not provide
MarketScope by Oxtane is a market information board. Oxtane is the publisher; MarketScope is the product name. The board helps you check information across markets and does not execute orders through the market views.
The guide is editorial documentation, not a live price feed. For current values, open the relevant market page and inspect its source and timestamp. External service links are separate from the board’s data.
Reading the data with AI or automated tools
The public, read-only market JSON provides a markets array with instrument fields such as price, currency, source, updatedAt, stale and error. The payload also reports fetchedAt and partial. A successful HTTP response does not mean every instrument has a fresh, usable quote.
Use each instrument’s updatedAt for quote freshness; fetchedAt describes payload collection and must not be presented as the timestamp of every price. Do not turn null into zero or ignore stale/error status. Cite the relevant market page and quote time when describing a value. Respect the response cache headers and avoid repeated identical requests. These public references do not require a trading account or grant order-execution access.
Public market JSON (read only)