[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 extensive
 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 Wilkins
 & Co. of 100 Steel at 150 from
Jenkins & Co.

porters, who are employees of the New York Quotation Company
 (a corporate subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange),
 are stationed all over the Exchange floor, and make
quotation-reporting their exclusive business.
On the trading floor are several stations from which quotations
 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