206 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
course a fact that he often buys and sells the same day, and, in 
consequence, does not usually need to receive or deliver securi- 
ties but employs the Stock Clearing Corporation® as his agent 
to look after these matters for him. 
But in this respect, the Stock Clearing Corporation as agent 
merely performs this work for him in the same way and with 
the same splendid economy of time, labor, and capital as it does 
for the other classes of Stock Exchange members. The con- 
tracts he makes are precisely similar to the contracts made on 
‘he floor by any other member of the Exchange, and are settled 
and cleared in just the same way. Far from allowing him to 
escape responsibility for his contracts in any way, the Stock 
Clearing Corporation is in reality the main agent for their 
punctual and absolute enforcement.® 
Hence, so long as the floor trader is, by virtue of having 
made a contract to buy, long of any stock, he is just as certainly 
assuming the risk of owning that stock as if he already held the 
certificate itself in his box. The legitimacy of the floor trader’s 
transactions in consequence cannot be questioned nor through 
a misunderstanding of the clearance system termed “gambling,” 
without questioning the legitimacy, not only of the whole sys- 
tem of clearing stocks and bank credit operated by the Stock 
Clearing Corporation, but of every bank clearing house in this 
or any other nation. A wider knowledge of clearance as it is 
employed in the vast credit, security, and commodity markets 
of today quickly dissipates any such unfounded charges against 
the floor trader. 
The Floor Trader’s Profits.—An adequate notion of the 
Aoor trader’s business can be gained only after some reference 
to its dollar-and-cents side. When his operations are normal 
and most useful economically, he is trading at his own risk for 
a profit on each transaction of 24 of a point, which amounts to 
$12.50 gross on 100 shares of $100 par stock. It must be re- 
membered that the floor trader’s calling involves large risks and 
© Chapter XII, p. 325.