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 XVIII. The stock exchange as an international market

Collection:: Economics Books

STOCK EXCHANGE AN INTERNATIONAL MARKET 505 Speaking of the difficulties of the arbitrage business, a former governor of the Exchange stated: Because of its complexity and its risks, arbitraging is not a business that appeals to beginners on the floor. One must have reliable col- leagues on the foreign Exchanges who are constantly watchful and alert, and who are moreover possessed of sufficient capital to finance large transactions. In addition, there are labyrinthine difficulties to surmount in the way of commissions, interest charges, insurance of securities in transit, fluctuations in the money markets abroad and at home, cable tolls, letters of confirmation, rates of foreign exchange, settlement days, contangoes and many other matters. Unless a man has had a long experience in the difficult art of arbitraging, he had better shun it or prepare for trouble.® Into these and other subtleties and technicalities it is not particularly to our present purpose to inquire. It is sufficient to have instanced the basic principles upon which arbitrage operations rest. Former Arbitrage on the Floor.— Formerly this arbitrage business between New York and foreign centers had its appro- priate machinery on the Stock Exchange floor. Against the south wall of the board room was the “arbitrage rail,” behind which were pneumatic tubes connecting the floor with the cable offices in the basement of the building. As an added conven- ience, most of the so-called “international stocks’ were located at the row of stock posts nearest the rail. By posting them- selves near this rail, therefore, the members of the Exchange who did an arbitrage business could receive and deliver mes- sages and orders from and to the foreign stock exchanges with astonishing speed. According to the same authority cited above,* “the arbitrageur may buy in New York and sell in London and receive a confirmation, all in three minutes.” Few features of Wall Street life so irresistibly appeal to the imagination as this extraordinary business, conducted in the various world markets over the flashing cables with a speed vastly more rapid than the roll of the earth from darkness into Van Antwerp, p. 284

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