This is on a 1280 × 1024 desktop, with the bottom panel remaining below (not behind) the ticker:
(if (is (window_name) "News Ticker") (begin (pin) (above) (undecorate) (skip_tasklist) (geometry "1280x20+0-0")))
The ‘xwininfo’ command is useful in getting the coordinates.
Note that this makes shutting the ticker down impossible, apart from issuing a ‘kill’ command to do it.