A BUSY DAY IN THE STOCK EXCHANGE.
THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE.
BY HUBERT EARL.
A little gathering of men met under a buttonwood-tree in 1792, opposite what is now No. 60 Wall Street, and formed an association for the purpose of exchange and more ready current transaction of business. From this crude organization has grown the present New York Stock Exchange with its immense capital. Installed in a dignified edifice between Broad and New streets, with an entrance on Wall Street, its eleven hundred members transact business daily between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. No transactions are allowed before or after these hours, a heavy fine being the penalty for each offence, and such contracts not being recognized by the governing committee of the Exchange.
A membership in the Stock Exchange is worth a small fortune, for the seats have sold as high as $32,500, though at present they do not bring over $18,000. The brokers are both rich and poor, but adding the value of the memberships to an estimated average capital of $100,000 for each member, $150,000,000 is a conservative figure of the capital invested.
To the casual visitor who finds himself leaning over the handsome balcony rail looking down upon the immense floor of the Board-Room the howling gesticulating crowd of brokers appears like a mob of lunatics, and the occasional half-clipped calls that rise to his ears justify the comparison. Sign-posts are placed about the floor, bearing the names of the different stocks dealt in, and around these posts the brokers gather to buy and sell. When a particular stock is what is termed active, the brokers dealing in it surge madly around the post assigned to it, and amid deafening yells make their contracts. An ideal broker is one whose face never betrays any emotion, but remains perfectly passive, whether his stock transactions net him an enormous gain or lose him a fortune.