172 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE
Frequently, customers of brokerage houses will wish to
ascertain such current bids and offers before buying or selling,
particularly if Exchange dealings are heavy and the ticker is
“behind the market.” Formerly, this could be done by tele-
phoning from a Stock Exchange office to the floor telephone
and requesting the latest bid and offer. This method was never
wholly satisfactory, however, and in the active markets of 1927
and 1928 became increasingly difficult.
The Stock Exchange accordingly devised a new system
upon radically different lines. A quotation clerk was stationed
at each stock post with a telephone to report the latest bids and
offers as requested. A central switchboard service, located in
the upper stories of the Stock Exchange Building, relays these
current bids and offers speedily and accurately from the floor
quotation clerk to any Stock Exchange house in the financial
district which may have requested the quotation. Although
2 very new development, this quotation system has already won
its place among the services in Wall Street which increase the
safety as well as the speed of Stock Exchange dealings.
Value of a Ready Market.—There is another aspect of
the cited sale of 100 shares of Steel, which through the opera-
tions of the two Stock Exchange commission brokerage houses
Jones of Baltimore has beep able to make so quickly and satis-
factorily to Smith of San Francisco, that deserves emphasis at
this point. In all probability Jones never heard of Smith or
Wilkins. He may not even know that such men exist, and,
granted the Stock Exchange system, he does not need to. But
were there no Stock Exchange, no out-of-town brokerage
houses, no thousands of miles of brokerage wires spreading
like a vast network over the whole country, Jones could not
effect his sale so easily and at so fair a price. Lacking all this
machinery, he would be forced to go to considerable personal
exertion and expense to sell his stock. He would have to talk
to his friends and hunt out his friends’ friends and perhaps to
21 See Appendix VIE.
