Stock Exchange Tickers Too Slow

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 846, 14 December 1929, Page 12

Stock Exchange Tickers Too Slow

NEW YORK COMPLAINS FASTER SYSTEM COMING The inadequacy of the present stock j ticker—that complicated apparatus | which flashes the news o£ transactions | on the floors of the exchanges I to brokers’ offices all over the couutry ! —was again forcibly demonstrated recently, when all Wall Street's trading records were smashed (says the “New York Times”). Recently, for instance, when 16,410,030 shares were traded in on the New York Stock Exchange, the tape sent out its last price at 5.32 o'clock for a market which closed at 3. On the previous Thursday the last transaction was recorded after seten o’clock. Yet the present system and apparatus is considered a marvel of ingenuity, for many steps are involved between the time the customer places his order and the time when news of the completed transaction is flashed far and wide. Course ot a Transaction The customer telephones a “customer’s man” at his brokerage office, ordering say 100 shares of United States Steel at the market. This is jotted down on a slip of paper, “Buy 100 X mkt.,” and sent to the brokerage wire room. Here a telephone call is made to the floor of the Stock Exchange, calling for the “floor member” of the firm. The floor member’s number is shown on one of the huge enunciator boards, calling him to the telephone. Getting the order, he goes to the Steel post, may try to get a better price than that which is at the moment ruling for the stock, gives his offers in fractions of a dollar until another broker says “Sold.” The transaction is then made, each man jotting it down and sending it to his firm for recording. Then comes the business of flashing the news of the sale. Record of the sale is made by reporters, employees of the New York Stock Exchange. The reporter writes on a slip of paper the stock, number of shares and price. He takes the record to the nearest of six ticker units located at different sections of the floor. Here are a number of men who operate keyboards resembling typewriter keyboards. They take down the transaction, punching keys which perforate a tape. The tape is passed through boxes that have teeth that make contacts where there are holes, or fail to make contact where the tape is unpenetrated. A little wheel on which is inscribed all the letters of the alphabet and numbers and fractions of numbers receives electrical impulses from the perforated tape and thus selects the characters which are to be printed to make the transaction known to the world. In the gallery of the Stock Exchange is another group of men who work at a control board and whose business it is to watch over the recording by the floor operators, make corrections if necessary, and keep one unit of the ticker system from getting ahead of the others. About five transactions are taken from one unit, then five from the next, and in order they are sent along by underground cable to an oflice at 52 Broadway. If one unit is found to be five minutes behind the actual market transactions and another unit seven minutes behind, time is given to the lagging one to catch up. Electrical impulses are then carried to brokerage offices maintaining the service in Lower Manhattan south of Chambers Street, about 3,500 in all. The Western Union Telegraph Company sends the quotations to about 6,000 other oflices, located in New York above Chambers Street, in other parts of the country and abroad. Machines at the brokerage oflices. using a tape of a cellulose compound, reflect the prices as they appear on a lighted screen. * THE NEW TICKER At the present time the Stock Exchange is using two types of transmitting tickers, a new type having been brought out about a year ago. The latter, according to the New York Quotation Company, is capable of keeping records of transactions up to the minute on a 7,000,000-share day, provided the sales are fairly evenly divided, that is, provided there are no great peaks of trading. The receiving part of this new ticker—keyed down to the pace of the old ticker —has been installed in about 200 downtown offices, and more are being put in as rapidly as possible. But until all the offices —some 10,000 —are equipped with the new tickers, it cannot be used at its high speed by the brokers, for some would then get quotations ahead of others. The new machine will print about 500 impressions a minute simultaneously all over the country, while the old machine prints only about 280 characters a minute. The mechanical difference between the two is that the old ticker stops its selection of characters while it is printing a character, while the new “Teletype” prints and selects at the same time. The new ticker comprises an electric motor whose speed is controlled by an adjustable governor. The motor drives two shafts, a selecting shaft and a printing shaft. The characters to be printed are determined by the conjoint action of the selecting shaft and a controlling magnet operated by a transmitter. During a revolution ot the selecting shaft it connects a series of six latches to a line magnet operated by the transmitter. If the magnet is operated at the time when any latch is connected thereto, the latch will be tripped. But, if the line magnet is no-t operated at this time, the latch will not be tripped. The operation of the magnet is controlled directly by the transmitter by means of the perforations in the tape previously prepared by means of the operators. For example, if in the tape the first and second latches are perforated the first and second latches are tripped, thereby selecting the letter A. When rotation is completed the selection is transferred to a set of selecting discs which release the type wheel driven by the other shaft and set a stop. This stops the type wheel at the letter A in a printing position, where it is printed by the printing shaft. In the meanwhile the selecting shaft has been started in rotation to select the next desired character.