Symbol Types
There are 3 types of symbols used in Motif:
Investment Item (Ivem)
An Ivem is any instrument used for investment or trading. This includes listed securities and derivatives,exchange instruments such as exchange indices and instruments from information vendors such as industry indices.
These symbols have reference information but no pricing information.
Lit Investment Item (LitIvem)
A LitIvem is an Ivem associated with a lit a market that has pricing information. Securities which are traded on a lit market or indices showing the performance of a market.
These have pricing and trading status information.
Routed Investment Item (RoutedIvem)
A RoutedIvem is an Ivem with routing information attached so that it can be traded. When an order request is generated for a symbol (an Ivem), the order request can specify which market the symbol is to be traded on. Alternatively, it can specify the algorithm used to select the market(s). For example, a ‘best’ algorithm may specify the market that has the current best pricing for that symbol.
This is the ‘routing’ information and it is part of the symbol.
In many cases, an order request for a symbol is to be routed to an explicitly specified market. In this case, a RoutedIvem will have the same symbol as the corresponding LitIvem.
Enter and display symbols
Entering and displaying symbols (Ivems, LitIvems and RoutedIvems) in Motif is discussed here.