Cincinnati Stock Exchange floor, mezzanine level, Dixie Terminal Building, 4th and Walnut Streets, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 in the late 1970′s.
Pictured are floor brokers receiving orders by telephone from the home office “order room”, handwriting (in ink) information about the order on paper order “tickets”, blue/black paper for BUY: red for SELL: yellow paper order tickets for CANCELL, order(s).
Somewhere on each floor broker’s desk is an order “deck”, a file box of “open” orders e.g. “GTC”, “Limited”, “Stop” etc. that had not been “filled” or were “partialled” (where some of the order had been filled) with the balance pending “disposition”.
Quotron quotation screens in the square metal cases in front of key boards are evident, as is an enormous printer in the background, and on top of the metal cases (what better place to put something) are time stamping devices made by the Cincinnati Time Recorder Company, the premier and basically only manufacturer of such devices in the United States, in continuous operations, since 1896, and now the Cincinnati Time Systems Co. By Exchange RULE, each order ticket had to be time stamped after the floor broker filled out the order ticket, and subsequently by RULE time stamped a second time when the order was filled and the price, quantity of shares, etc. was confirmed. So much activity!
In front of the floor broker in the foreground is a 40 button phone “bank”, custom designed by Cincinnati Bell Telephone for the Exchange, connecting that floor broker to his home office or “correspondents’” order rooms geographically disbursed throughout the U.S. No wonder that the Board of Directors of the CSE often contemplated changing the name of the CSE to the United States Stock Exchange. After all at the height of Exchange Membership over 400 Members were calling in orders or had floor brokers physically present on the Exchange floor in Cincinnati. Four hundred Members, 40 button phone banks times 10, is 400 phone lines behind those buttons times X number of
floor brokers, dialing in from X number of order rooms, and the number could go up to 4,000 connections very quickly, WHEW! But, who was counting? Or who had time to think that there might be a better way to do business?
Well as fate would have it someone was lurking in the background. Soon automation would replace this picture and STP, Straight Through Processing, invented at the CSE, would rule the day.
And those phone receivers, a.k.a. hand sets, mouthpieces, would be gone. They were particularly useful as “communication” devices of another sort almost on an hourly basis, or until the Exchange started fining floor brokers for their excesses of in-decorum. For example they were used by floor brokers as hurling devices that were thrown at windows, the floor, the door, the desk, just at about any target followed by 4 letter words and utterances such as “I’ll never do business with that &%*# again. He just %#*@ me on that order”!
And then there was the occurance when a floor broker hurled a receiver at another floor broker accross the desk, striking the person in the head. It was a direct hit that KO-ed the unfortunate person who fell
to the floor in a faint. Oh, and these devices were fitted out with 15 foot cords so they were particularly suited to this sport of “Venting Frustration With the Counterparty”.
Not much more to tell about this picture. So for now, click!
"As the first fully automated stock market in the world, the Cincinnati Stock Exchange made stocks and securities more accessible to the public and revolutionized the financial industry." - Elissa Sonnenberg, MSEd, Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati
A collaborative project of the UC Journalism Program and the Cincinnati Historical Society
Cincinnati Stock Exchange floor, mezzanine level, Dixie Terminal Building, 4th and Walnut Streets, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 in the late 1970′s.
Pictured are floor brokers receiving orders by telephone from the home office “order room”, handwriting (in ink) information about the order on paper order “tickets”, blue/black paper for BUY: red for SELL: yellow paper order tickets for CANCELL, order(s).
Somewhere on each floor broker’s desk is an order “deck”, a file box of “open” orders e.g. “GTC”, “Limited”, “Stop” etc. that had not been “filled” or were “partialled” (where some of the order had been filled) with the balance pending “disposition”.
Quotron quotation screens in the square metal cases in front of key boards are evident, as is an enormous printer in the background, and on top of the metal cases (what better place to put something) are time stamping devices made by the Cincinnati Time Recorder Company, the premier and basically only manufacturer of such devices in the United States, in continuous operations, since 1896, and now the Cincinnati Time Systems Co. By Exchange RULE, each order ticket had to be time stamped after the floor broker filled out the order ticket, and subsequently by RULE time stamped a second time when the order was filled and the price, quantity of shares, etc. was confirmed. So much activity!
In front of the floor broker in the foreground is a 40 button phone “bank”, custom designed by Cincinnati Bell Telephone for the Exchange, connecting that floor broker to his home office or “correspondents’” order rooms geographically disbursed throughout the U.S. No wonder that the Board of Directors of the CSE often contemplated changing the name of the CSE to the United States Stock Exchange. After all at the height of Exchange Membership over 400 Members were calling in orders or had floor brokers physically present on the Exchange floor in Cincinnati. Four hundred Members, 40 button phone banks times 10, is 400 phone lines behind those buttons times X number of
floor brokers, dialing in from X number of order rooms, and the number could go up to 4,000 connections very quickly, WHEW! But, who was counting? Or who had time to think that there might be a better way to do business?
Well as fate would have it someone was lurking in the background. Soon automation would replace this picture and STP, Straight Through Processing, invented at the CSE, would rule the day.
And those phone receivers, a.k.a. hand sets, mouthpieces, would be gone. They were particularly useful as “communication” devices of another sort almost on an hourly basis, or until the Exchange started fining floor brokers for their excesses of in-decorum. For example they were used by floor brokers as hurling devices that were thrown at windows, the floor, the door, the desk, just at about any target followed by 4 letter words and utterances such as “I’ll never do business with that &%*# again. He just %#*@ me on that order”!
And then there was the occurance when a floor broker hurled a receiver at another floor broker accross the desk, striking the person in the head. It was a direct hit that KO-ed the unfortunate person who fell
to the floor in a faint. Oh, and these devices were fitted out with 15 foot cords so they were particularly suited to this sport of “Venting Frustration With the Counterparty”.
Not much more to tell about this picture. So for now, click!