[68 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
for just the right moment to buy the stock. He reports the 
purchase to his telephone clerk on a slip shown in Figure 11. 
Machinery of the Ticker System.—Meanwhile, the exten- 
sive and efficient machinery by which the daily transactions on 
the floor of the Stock Exchange are made public has not been 
idle. When Wilkins cries “Take it” to Jenkins’ offer of stock 
at the Steel post, a quotation reporter at once notes the sale, 
the amount of stock sold, and the selling price. These re- 
BUY 
Joo [els 
(50 Jr 
WILKINS & CO. 
YY 15 
Figure 10. Floor “Buy Slip” 
‘BOT + | 
SOLD 
100 AX 
/50 
Uorekoirs S45 
WILKINS & CO. 
Figure 11. Floor Purchase 
Report Slip 
Recording the purchase by Wil- 
kins & Co. of 100 Steel at 150 from 
Jenkins & Co. 
porters, who are employees of the New York Quotation Com- 
pany (a corporate subsidiary of the New York Stock Ex- 
change), are stationed all over the Exchange floor, and make 
quotation-reporting their exclusive business. 
On the trading floor are several stations from which quota- 
tions are printed on the tape. The instrument used for this 
purpose has a key-board like a typewriter, and in a sense the 
operator seated before it is a typist. For no human agency, 
but only electricity, intervenes from the time he presses down 
a kev and the time when the corresponding letter or figure is