208 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
Thus, the imposition of these State and Federal taxes upon 
sales of stock has placed a crushing burden upon the dealer in 
stocks who operates for small profits, and has led to abnormal 
and undesirable changes in the market's structure and methods 
of operation. To begin with, the number of floor traders has 
been considerably reduced as compared with pre-war times, 
despite the enormous growth of the stock market meanwhile. 
Former floor traders have either sold their seats and retired 
from the Exchange entirely, or else have abandoned this par- 
ticular work for some other more lucrative activity on the 
tixchange floor. 
Moreover, the floor traders who still remain have been 
forced to trade more intermittently and for larger fractions 
than 14. Many have tended to become “long-pull” speculators, 
and to take a position in the market, thus being warped by 
heavy taxation out of their true function and greatest economic 
usefulness. For, from the economic standpoint, it is the cus- 
tomer in the brokerage office who can most usefully engage 
in security trades involving considerable intervals of time. 
Furthermore, the present-day floor trader has to some extent 
been forced to confine his operations to low-priced stocks, upon 
which the stamp taxes are sometimes at reduced rates. When 
he does deal in high-priced stocks, he is likewise impelled to 
avoid any except those with considerably greater fluctuations 
between sales than 14, in order to realize a higher fractional 
profit on each trade. 
Economic Effects of Stamp Taxes.—As a result of this 
reduction and metamorphosis of the floor trader’s normal 
activities, the whole stock market has to a considerable extent 
been rendered less stable than formerly. Deprived of the floor 
trader’s close intermediary bids and offers, prices have been 
subject to wider fluctuations, and the execution at close prices 
of the commission broker’s orders, in both round and odd lots, 
has become more difficult.