A TYPICAL INVESTMENT TRANSACTION 163
crowd” about this post is composed not only of commission
brokers like Jenkins, who are buying and selling the stock as
agents for other Exchange members or outside principals, but
also floor traders dealing entirely on their own account, odd-
lot dealers who stand ready to buy or sell any number of shares
less than the ordinary trading unit of 100 shares, and specialists
who confine their dealings entirely to the particular stocks
located at this post. This constantly shifting group of brokers
and dealers represents almost the whole world demand and
world supply of Steel stock at that particular moment.
Formerly, the “stock posts” on the Exchange floor were
actual posts, provided with price recording dials on their sides
and a circular seat about their base.® In order to conserve
space on the trading floor, these former posts were in 1928-29
replaced by the present large, hollow U-shaped booths (Plate
7) to which the traditional term “post” has nevertheless clung.
Inside each post is a tube station connected by pneumatic tubes
with the members’ telephone booths which fringe the floor’
these tubes are, as we shall presently see, employed primarily
by the specialists*® and the odd-lot dealers.
The outside of the so-called post is pierced midway up by
windows, above which hang metal plates stamped with the
name of the given stock and price recording dials provided
with movable figures which record the last sale-price. The
price reporters keep these figures up to date, except when mar-
ket activity becomes so great as to cause them temporarily to
be neglected. At the end of the post also hang paper slips for
the stocks at the given post; each day one slip is used to record
the opening, highest, lowest, and last prices for that day, of
all the stocks at the given post. These slips are posted each
night after the close of the market, and are kept over the course
of the previous few weeks. Owing to these price recording
8 See Appendix IITe,
® See Appendix I1lg,
10 See Chapter VIII, p. 214.
1 See Chapter IX, p. 236.
