The work of the Stock Exchange

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1831284952

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-225876

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Meeker, James Edward http://d-nb.info/gnd/126597340

Title:: The work of the Stock Exchange

Edition:: Revised edition

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Ronald Press Company

Year of publication:: [1930]

Scope:: XVI, 720 Seiten; Illustrationen, Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. The floor trader and the specialist

Collection:: Economics Books

204 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE are reached, speed and agility are relied upon to do the rest. Age can- not wither, nor custom stale, his infinite variety. He is a bull one minute, and a bear the next. He is intent, resourceful, suspicious, vigilant, and ubiquitous. He asks no quarter, and gives none. Now he is sphinx-like, deaf, inscrutable and impenetrable; now exploding with the frenzy of battle. You may stand and chat with him, and he may seem to listen to you. In reality he does not hear you at all. His roving eye is elsewhere, his mind is intent on other things. In the middle of a sentence he may leave you abruptly and go tearing from crowd to crowd like a thing possessed, the incarnation of energy. From the nature of his business the floor trader does not usually need to maintain an elaborate office. Often, indeed, the floor trader simply hires desk room in some commission office. For the same reason he usually clears his transactions through some commission house instead of attempting to handle the work of clearance through an office and with employees of his own. In such an event his purchases and sales of stock are consequently entered on the clearance sheet of that commission broker, along with the latter’s transactions.’ Usually, there- fore, in making contracts for the delivery or receipt of stock on the floor, the floor trader “gives up” the name of this clear- ing member rather than his own. In return for the responsi- bility and labor assumed by the clearing member, the floor trader pays him a clearance fee of $1 or upwards per 100 shares nf stock cleared. The Floor Trader’s Economic Services.—The floor trader regularly performs two important economic services. For one thing, his speculative purchases and sales are of great assistance in maintaining a continuous market. As we have seen, they fill gaps which would inevitably occur in a purely broker’s market. The floor trader’s operations consequently serve as one of the means of imparting instant negotiability to all the Exchange’s listed securities. In the second place, he is of an even greater significance in stabilizing prices. As a matter of fact, the floor trader’s best 3 See Chapter XII. p. 328.

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