3. Stock abbrCviations.—As there are over 1500 bonds and stocks listed on the Stock Exchange, it is inadvisable from the financial point of view as well as practically impossible, to spell out in full the name of the security dealt in. Abbreviations, often one let ter in length, are employed and the number of stocks sold, together with the price are given. The follow ing are sample abbreviations: U—Union Pacific.
UB—Utica and Black River.
UC—United Cigar Manufacturing Company. UCS—United Cigar Stores.
The sale of 100 shares of Union Pacific common stock at 132 would read 100 U 132. Many of the nicknames for stocks arise from these abbrevia tions, for example "Mop" for Missouri Pacific, from M. P.
Other abbreviations beside those for the stocks themselves are used for the correction of errors, for offers without bids, or bids without offers, also when a sale is not reported in its proper order, to distinguish the amount sold and the price paid when they are so nearly alike as to cause confusion, to indicate three day contracts, options and so forth. A word and phrase book and a complete list of abbreviations is usually fastened to the stand upon which the ticker rests.
4. Use of the gather round the ticker in the various offices and follow its story with keen interest. Except when the market is very dull the ticker never quite keeps up with it, being from one to ten minutes behind according to the activity of the market. Only in an extremely busy market would it be ten minutes behind. Mistakes tho rarely made are quickly corrected.
The louder the sound of ticking the more notice the machine attracts because loud ticking is a sign that the market is active. From the activity of the ticker, the character of stocks appearing upon it, the amount and units of the deals, the prices, the variety or lack of variety of stocks dealt in, the order of their appear ance and other ticker signs which are soon learned, one may get an almost complete picture of the mar ket, indeed the nearest approach to it that anyone who is not on the floor, newspaper reporters not ex cepted, ever gets. Tickers are used even on the ground floor of the Stock Exchange itself and brokers cluster about them, and then rush to the various posts again to make more deals, the quotations for which they read in the ticker a few minutes later.
5. Quotation is the rapid print ing of price quotations made possible? On the floor of the exchange brokers are buying and selling con tinually. Official uniformed reporters engaged by the exchange, fly hither and thither to secure information as to the sales made, the stocks involved, the quantities sold and the price obtained. Upon, getting the in formation the reporter immediately rushes to one of the four telegraph stations placed at convenient in tervals on the floor, from which the message is sent to a gallery where there are employes of the ticker companies. These are two companies only; the New York Quotation Company is owned and managed by the Exchange itself primarily for the purpose of bene fitting its own members. It gives out its figures to about 1100 tickers, located in the Wall Street district, which in this case means south of Chambers Street. The other company is a subsidiary of the Western Union Telegraph Company, known as the Gold and Stock Company. It pays a large sum, formerly $100,000 a year, for the quotations which it gets simul taneously with the company first named and supplies them to persons all over the country not members of the Exchange. The Exchange attempts to determine who shall and who shall not receive these quotations, in order to prevent their falling into the hands of bucket shop keepers and other undesirable persons, but the whole subject of its right to control their sale is constantly being fought out in the courts.
Another function the ticker performs is that of act ing as time keeper. A minute before the limit is reached the words "Hammonds Time" appear on the tape, followed by fifteen distinct clicks. At the end of the fifteenth beat it is 2.15. The ticker thus serves as a valuable reminder and regulator to those who are continually in a state of mental excitement and worry and who are apt, thru their preoccupation, to forget their obligations. On the surface this may seem un important to the novice, but it requires years of expe rience to appreciate the value of minor details of which this is an illustration.