When Business Buzzes

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 349, 9 May 1928, Page 14

When Business Buzzes

NEW YORK’S STOCK EXCHANGE Big Money, Noise and Chaos ON the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, where business is never business unless accompanied by queer noises, more than one record has been established recently, says a writer in the “New York Times,” who, in a graphic article, describes the impressions a visitor gets on viewing the activities of the great financial centre of the Western hemisphere.

Bp-i OR one thing, a new */ brand of noise has been Jf) brought forth, he writes. f'J You get your first audition at the door of the Sjy visitors’ gallery a strange, shrill, bewildering noise, made up of a conglomeration of human voices and almost human machines, all working at top speed and high tension. From 10 o’clock in the morning to 3 in the afternoon the racket never subsides. Never a quiet spot during business hours, even when the market itself was pronounced quiet, for the stock exchange in recent days surpassed itself not only in volume of sales, but in the volume of sound

produced. None other than Alfred Aloysius Smith, New York’s Mayor, was among those who went there to look and listen one day. The veteran trader Horn from South Africa, who has heard many strange things in his long life, including the last gasp of the bull elephant expiring in the jungle, stood in the gallery visibly awed by the medley of sound that assailed him. Of all uncouth noises, this one was obviously too much for the trader—as indeed it was for the average native onlooker.

Viewed as a spectacle from the gallery, the show which accompanied the din proved equally bewildering. To the uninitiated it always is, even in normal times. But when 700 or more brokers, 500 pageboys, 50 ticker men, and an indiscernible number of telephone clerks put on their specialty, which might be called “A Four Million Share Day,” bringing to tbeir assistance the intricate and noisy mechanical equipment of the stock exchange, more things happen in one moment than human eye and ear can conveniently take in. Holders of stock exchange seats who never sit down are forever on the move—-aimlessly it would seem, although if attention be confined for a while to an individual floor member one discovers that he follows a more or less beaten path. Indeed, his route is often so regular, and he is so thoroughly familiar with it, that he barely looks to see where he is going. More often he proceeds with head lowered while entering the record of a sale on the inevitable slip of paper. He seems to know instinctively that so many steps and so many turns will take him from the trading post to the booth where his telephone clerk is. No Apology for Collisions Proceeding in this fashion, he is more than likely to encounter a fellow member doing likewise, and equally in a hurry. The two come together, look up, recoil, and proceed on their way. No apology is offered, and none is expected. There is no time for that sort of thing. The first sight of a group of brokers trading on the floor is apt to be a little disappointing. There are no less than 20 trading posts, each with its special stocks. Furthermore, the general commotion is so loud and incessant that one cannot from the visitors’ gallery catch a word they are saying, even though some may be shouting. When Signals Pass In the midst of the hubbub, one will probably see a broker in the fringe of the scrimmage raise one hand and utter a few words. Another broker on the extreme other side of the milling mob will raise one hand in acknowledgment. The first will point at the second—bad manners do not count here—and the second will then point at the first, whereupon they will both whip out pencil and pad and make jottings, the nature of which is their own affair. And off they will hurry to their respective phone clerks. You may have been witness to one of the biggest stock transactions of a big day, but if that is the case one will have to take it on faith. Least of all can you hope to diagnose the nature of the game—tell whether things are breaking right or

otherwise for the individual members -—by studying the facial expressions. That is probably the most futile pastime a visitor in the gallery can possibly indulge in. Conceivably millions are being lost and won by various members in the heights of the trading, but the eyewitness in the front row gallery would have a terrible time trying to distinguish the winners from the losers. The expression on the face of a floor member —during business hours—tells you nothing. Emotional display is not the fashion on the floor, least of all when the market is making a tense and dramatic ascension. Outbursts of feeling are more apt to be restricted to quieter moments, when the more sportively inclined members yield to the impulse to cut loose. Revelations of the Machines

Despite ail the masquerading, the lack of expression and the obvious nonchalance with which so many members move about, there is a strong undercurrent of high nervous tension in the doings of a 4,000,000-share day. If the human parts of the Exchange machine succeeded in covering it up, the mechanical devices are somewhat less successful. If one stays There long enough, one comes more and more under the spell of the annunciator hoard. If one watches it long enough it results in a severe attack of the fidgets. Here is one of the most restless and nerve-wrecking gadgets in the whole vast stock trading machine. On big clays like those just experienced it is never still. There are two annunciator boards in tbe main room of the Exchange and a third in the bond room. They resemble huge blackboards covering the mid-section of the north and south walls. If there is a phone call for a floor member, the telephone clerk in his booth on the floor presses a button and the annunciator board flashes the number of the member wanted. There are 1,100 members of the New Yoi'k Stock Exchange and each one has a floor number. The annunciator board is large enough to display each of those 1,100 numbers, in numerals possibly a foot high, all at once.

During the recent bear market the annunciator boards have been worked overtime. There have been moments when it seemed as if fully one-third of the board was a mass of flashing numbers. Flashing is not the correct, word: The numbers are hinged find released magnetically. They may hang there motionless or they may be made to flap. If it is a rush call, the operator makes them flap—a noisy proceeding. Members get in the habit of keeping a sort of weather eye on the annunciator board, no matter what part of the floor they may be in or whatever other business they may be doing. Doctors Languish Probably the only department of the Exchange which has not as yet reported an extra heavy rush of business is the medical office. Strangely enough the nervous strain and the omission of luncheons have not taken the toll that might be expected. On the contrary, since the 4,000,000-share day period set in the medical department has found itself with less work to do than for months gone by. In dull times brokers are wont to give a thought to small ailments, and a moderate headache will send many a floor member to the doctor’s office for treatment. Such visits have almost entirely ceased. The medical attendants sit around wondering what has become of all their star patients. The answer, of course, is that they are on the floor in the thick of the trading. Many miraculous cures have been effected. The chronic invalids simply have not time to be sick.