The work of the Stock Exchange

Bibliographic data

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.

596 APPENDIX tended to their clients. Negotiability imparts value to securities, and the New York Stock Exchange promotes negotiability.” (Duncan MacGregor in the Financial Barometer.) (VId) The stock ticker was first projected about 1867 by E. A. Calahan, an employee of the American Telegraph Co. Prior to that time, current quotations were made available from the Stock Ex- change during the day by a curious industry known as “pad-shoving.” Messengers would secure the latest prices at the Exchange, and rush from one brokerage office to another shouting them out. In the days before continuous markets, 4o0-story buildings, and four million share days, this was well enough. Nevertheless, by December, 1869, the first stock tickers in the world were installed by a few progressive Wall Street brokers. So slow and subject to break downs were they, that for a time the “pad-shovers” competed successfully with them. In a few years, however, perfections in the machines by Thomas Edison and other inventors rendered the occupation of “pad-shoving” obsolete in Wall Street. The stock ticker, of course, operates much more rapidly than the revolution of the earth. The stock tickers of San Francisco report prices only about a minute after they have been printed in New York. But when the New York market opens at Io A.M. it is 9 A.M. in Chicago, 8 A.M. in Omaha, and 7 A.M. in San Francisco. When day- light saving time was adopted and the Exchange opened at 9 A.M. standard time, the unhappy Californians protested vigorously at being forced to begin the day’s business at 6 A.M. Yet at the same time, the London broker interested in American securities finds it 2.56 P.M. and if he wishes to follow the New York market to its close at 3p.M. New York time, he cannot leave the “City” for dinner till about 8 p.M. All the New York Stock Exchange can do in this dilemma is to point out that, after all, it is not really responsible for the leisurely pace of the world’s sidereal revolution! Originally, quotations for both stocks and bonds were handled by the same quotation system in the Exchange, and were printed on the same stock tape. In 1919, bonds were placed on a special “bond ticker” in order to relieve congestion on the stock ticker. All quotations were at that time dispatched from the floor by ordinary telegraphic instru- ments to an office in the upper stories of the Exchange building, where operators received them and printed them on the tape. Only one instrument was needed to send bond quotations upstairs from the floor, and thus the bond ticker system was comparatively simple. But there were four stations on the floor, whence stock quotations were dispatched, and consequently upstairs there had to be four operators

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