The work of the Stock Exchange

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1831284952

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-225876

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Meeker, James Edward http://d-nb.info/gnd/126597340

Title:: The work of the Stock Exchange

Edition:: Revised edition

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Ronald Press Company

Year of publication:: [1930]

Scope:: XVI, 720 Seiten; Illustrationen, Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. The floor trader and the specialist

Collection:: Economics Books

210 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE for other brokers. The name “specialist” is derived from the fact that he specializes in the execution of orders in stocks located at the same post on the floor. Sometimes, indeed, in an unusually active stock with a heavy turnover, he will confine his entire attention to dealing in the stock issue of a single corporation. Tradition has it that the first specialist on the Exchange was a member who had been prevented from pursuing an active career in the commission business through breaking his leg. As a temporary experiment, therefore, he took his seat in the midst of the crowd trading in Western Union, then a very active stock, and executed orders only in it. Much to his own surprise, as well as to that of his associates, he soon found his new occupation more profitable than his former one, and even after his leg had mended, he continued in it. Other brokers followed his example and became specialists—a shift which the steadily growing volume of business on the Exchange favored —until today over 300 Exchange members can be found con- stantly stationed at the various posts, and constituting a vital and integral factor in the present-day stock market. Since there is probably no class of dealers or brokers within the mem- bership of the Stock Exchange concerning which more mis- understanding exists, it is of importance that the methods and significance of the specialist Be described at some length here. Clearance and Trading of the Specialist—Sometimes, as in the case of the floor trader, the specialist clears his own pur- chases and sales of stocks through some commission house. For such service he pays the same sort of fee as the floor trader does. On the other hand, the specialist sometimes not only performs his own clearance, but also clears for other members in return for a clearance fee. On orders of stock which he purchases or sells as 3 broker for other members, the specialist, as in the case of the two-dollar broker,® receives a commission from the broker for whom he executed the order. 8 See Chapter IIT, p. 83, and Appendix VIIIc.

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