FLOOR OF THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE The present building of the New York Stock Ex change is a large and ornate structure, running thru from Broad to New Street. Only the first floor is used for trading; it is, however, an immense inclosure, with ample space for the transaction of business. The other five floors and the basement are used for the elaborate mechanical apparatus, including the com plex cable, telegraphic and telephonic connections; for meeting rooms, committee rooms, officers' and employes' accommodations (members never have of fices in the building unless they are also officers of the Exchange or of the building company) , a luncheon club, smoking and lounging rooms, libraries, and simi lar comforts and conveniences.
3. The floor.—The main floor of the Exchange is surmounted by a high dome which admits a generous supply of light and air. An air-cooling plant was installed recently which minimizes the effects of exces sive humidity and keeps the floor of the Exchange well-ventilated in spite of the crowds. Around the walls is a seemingly limitless number of telephone booths each of which is leased to some member of the Exchange. The members and their clerks use these telephones many times a day to communicate with their offices for the purpose of receiving orders and reporting the success of negotiations.
On the "floor" of the Exchange there are scattered posts, at each one of which there are the names of the stocks that are bought and sold at that point. The number of stocks thus enumerated ranges from twenty to forty. There is, therefore, some particular place in the room for the purchase and sale of each listed security which, when once designated, is seldom changed.
For example, Atchison, the first stock on the alpha betical list, is at post 5; New York Air Brake at 14; and American Brake Shoe at 8. The broker soon learns where the securities are dealt in, and automatic ally turns in the right direction whenever he has oc casion to trade. One post at the northeast corner, No. 4, gets considerable attention, because here the "loan crowd" is situated ; stocks and money may be borrowed and lent. These operations are explained in later chapters. Still another portion of the floor
on a raised platform, under a gallery, is given up to bonds; and on one side of the room, close to the cable instruments, are the "arbitrage" brokers, who buy from, and sell to, London brokers.
Brokers tend to gather in crowds. Around or near each post are several of these crowds, which naturally vary in size as the popularity of the various securities changes. Thus, one hears such expressions as the "Steel Crowd," the "Reading Crowd," and so on.
4. Method of purchase and sale of securities.—To the average visitor who formerly made the rounds of the Stock Exchange, the whole affair was a puzzle. He did not understand what took place on the floor, and he left the place with wonderment. Altho pan demonium seems to exist, the machinery of business runs so smoothly that to the layman it is incredible that transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars are carried thru without a hitch every day.
When a member secures an order to buy, he goes to the proper post where the security is dealt in, and calls out how much he desires to buy and the price he is willing to pay. The price named will of course be at the last "quotations" or below it. The brokers who have that stock for sale gather around the post, each shouting out the price at which he will sell the quan tity 'desired. At first the buyer and the sellers may be far from a common ground of agreement, but grad ually they approach each other until some broker of fers the stock at the price which is agreeable to the buyer.
The first bid and offer to buy or sell, takes preced ence when it can be heard, and if there is a dispute as to which particular bid or offer was first, a committee decides. Prices are made by eighths of one per cent of the par value, never less. The frac tions are %, 1/4, %, %, Y, %; no other fractions are used. An eighth is the equivalent of 12% cents. Stocks are also spoken of as rising or falling one or two or any number of "points." A point is one dol lar, unless the stock happens to be selling at less than a dollar, in which case a point would be one cent.