A BROKER'S DAY
Having mastered roughly some of the mysteries and technicalities of the
Stock Exchange, we are now able to follow a broker through an average
day of his life with some interest. The broker's office-boy sighs
wearily to himself when he hears clerks in other walks of life dilating
upon the easy hours enjoyed by the Stock Exchange and its employees. It
is true that the office-boy does not have to reach his sphere of labour
early enough to sweep out the place and dust the desks; that is all done
for him; but he is supposed to be on the spot by about half-past nine.
Until ten he is pretty well lord of the office, for the Stock Exchange
clerks, as a rule, have a very easy time as regards hours. They need
rarely get to town much before ten o'clock, except the youngest of the
juniors, and the first personage of importance to arrive is he upon whom
falls the duty of glancing through the correspondence. Of course, it all
depends upon the size of the office, just as it does in other
businesses, how this branch of work is organised. In the case of a big
firm the letters are carefully sorted, and each department has its
proportion handed over, one dealing with transfers, another with
dividends, and so forth. But a smaller office may be more representative
of the general run of Stock Exchange work, and in such a one the
correspondence comes into the scope of the chief clerk if the partners
are not energetic enough to deal with it themselves.
By half-past ten the work of the day is mapped out, the bargains of the
previous day are in the checking book all ready for the unauthorised
clerk to check, the transfers are being prepared for delivery or
registration, the transfer receipts are run through to see what
certificates are ready for collection, and a multitude of details get
put into train for attention. At twenty minutes to eleven the
unauthorised clerk, who has probably been reading the newspaper,
declares that he will be shut out of the Settling Room and flies away to
check his bargains, while the partners begin to arrive on the scene.
Before the official hour of commencing business in the Stock Exchange
has been duly announced by the old policemen's rattles sprung by the
House waiters at a quarter to eleven o'clock, opening prices are already
coming in from the markets, through the House clerks and the tape. The
American quotations are, as a rule, more or less a matter of guesswork,
and are based on the New York closing prices cabled from the other side;
Home Railway lists are practically the same as those of the previous
evening, and mining shares usually open as they were in the Street
dealings of the night before. Thus it is on normal, ordinary days, but
taking the House as a whole, there is generally some early change in the
prices of some particular market caused by news contained in the morning
papers. Perhaps the indefatigable locusts have been taking one of their
excursion trips on one of the Argentine Rails, which causes the stocks
in that section to droop; or perhaps a bumper traffic makes Grand Trunk
securities advance in value; or it may be that a Mining Company has
declared an unexpected dividend after hours on the preceding day, and
the quotation for the shares is thereby affected. Each little detail of
this description becomes magnified as the opening feature of each
particular market, and the various items of news are telephoned or
telegraphed to such clients as are interested in the stock itself, or in
others of a similar group that may become affected by the information.
The first half-hour of the day, according to tradition, should be the
busiest, because of the execution of orders that have come through the
post; but if markets are moving sharply, the volume of business advances
with the sun, as the changes become known all over London, the
Provinces, Greater Britain, and the Continent. The swing of work is
fairly under way soon after eleven o'clock. The office-boys and
commissionaires are pursuing the tranquil round of transfer and
certificate work; the unauthorised clerks are busily wiring long strings
of prices by code to brokers and clients who are not on the spot; and
the authorised clerks are engaged in the execution of orders, what time
the partners interview clients in the office or attend to the more
important business in the House themselves.
When the times are very slack and there is nothing to do, the broker's
chief occupation consists in "having a look round," which means that he
explores the markets with a view to working up business in unexpected
quarters, and having a series of chats with as many of his old friends
as he may happen to meet. The only important duty of a dull day is
luncheon, which may possibly include fifty up at billiards. When the
Central London Railway was first opened, a fashion set in of lunching in
the West End, but the novelty quickly palled, and now the City clubs and
restaurants are as full as ever of Stock Exchange members, who find that
they meet more of their clients there than they did in the West, and are
able to gather information, views, and hints which frequently turn out
to be of value. Moreover, the broker is near his office in the event of
an important client calling to see him, and altogether it is more
convenient to be close at hand than in the faraway West End.
The afternoon passes quickly, or seems to do so, from the fact that the
Stock Exchange closes promptly at four o'clock. One of the most
remarkable developments of recent years in the Stock Exchange system is
the extension of private telephones, and these wires play a most
important part in the broker's life of the present day, especially
during the afternoon. Not that the wires are entirely confined to
brokers, but they, of course, have far more use for them than jobbers,
who, dealing in one class of stocks and shares, can appeal to a much
more limited circle. The broker's necessities in this direction are
bounded only by his clients and their importance. Numbers of flourishing
firms owe no small part of their success in business life to their
enterprise in the direction of private telephone wires to individual
clients, and the great landlords in the neighbourhood of the House have
been quick to seize the opportunity which presents itself for getting
big rents for small premises. The Stock Exchange Managers themselves are
well to the front in the arena of competition, and between £100 and £200
a year is demanded for the rent of one small room and telephone close to
Capel Court. By this means a broker and his client are in constant touch
with one another--much more so than would be the case if the general
telephone alone had to be relied upon--and a fair proportion of the day
is spent by the broker and his staff in reporting fluctuations to
clients and receiving their instructions. After luncheon, a client, so
it is said, feels more tolerant, more disposed to increase his price if
the shares he wants to buy are not obtainable at his original limit,
more disposed to accept a fraction less if his first selling order
should have proved at an impracticably high price.
But the great event of the afternoon is the reception of opening prices
from the New York Stock Exchange. In comparison with these, the Paris
quotations that arrive about noon are uninteresting, and the American
Market grows into a surging crowd between three o'clock and a
quarter-past. It is often remarked upon as singular that no official
prices are sent over from Wall Street; the arbitrage firms who deal
between London and New York alone know the prices cabled across, but by
their offering or bidding for shares it is obvious whether Wall Street
opens in good humour or bad. By rapid degrees the American fluctuations
become generally circulated; the market seems to be full of the little
pink slips that come flying in at the hands of boys and clerks stationed
in a line that stretches from the offices of the cable companies outside
the House to the very heart of the Yankee Market in the Stock Exchange.
Again the telephone and telegraph come into requisition, and the House
usually finishes up, unless there is really nothing doing, in a state of
more or less mild excitement. For one thing the markets are decidedly
crowded, everyone making a solemn point of being in at the close, and
for another, the brokers are engaged in a tour of the various
departments to make finally certain that they have overlooked no order
on their books which could be done, and to hear reports from the jobbers
in regard to limits that have been left during the earlier part of the
day. At four o'clock, at a signal from the main door of the Kaffir
Circus, a number of the waiters stand up with a loud shout of "Close!"
and the Stock Exchange doors are then open for exit only. Under no
consideration can a member or clerk re-enter when once the stentorian
"Close" has rung through the markets, and the cry is caught up by the
small fry in the street, who are waiting with their masters' hats and
umbrellas; so that the whole neighbourhood of Throgmorton Street knows
when four o'clock has come.
A cup of refreshment, and the broker hurries again to his office. A
clerk is left in the Street to report any vagrant movements which may
occur in the after-hours markets of mining shares or American Rails, but
the head goes back to attend to the correspondence. Herein lies one
great advantage possessed by the jobber over the broker; the former has
perhaps one letter to write, or possibly two; not often more, unless he
does a large shunting business with the country--taking advantage of
fractional differences of quotation which prevail in the provinces as
compared with London. But the broker finds himself confronted with a
shoal of letters, letters on every subject conceivably connected with
finance, besides a good many that are not. Some of the answers have, of
course, been dictated and written earlier in the day, but a good
proportion cannot be dealt with until the markets are over, and the
movements of the past six hours probably call for written comment to
clients who are interested in the various sections. Moreover, the
movements outside in the Street markets are possibly tending towards the
execution of fresh orders, so that altogether the post can with
difficulty be despatched on the sunny side of five o'clock even in quiet
times, and when business is active the hour may be considerably later.
The chief clerks are quite competent to deal with the finalities of the
correspondence, so that the heads of the firm need rarely stay to the
bitter end. Last of all come the batches of printed price lists, which a
good many brokers are in the habit of circulating amongst their clients.
Some firms not only issue, but print their own lists; at least one
complete set of printing machinery can be seen at work in the basement
of a broker's office.
Two or three late nights each fortnight are regarded as being all in the
settlement's work. The eve of each Pay day finds most offices employed
upon the details of transfer preparation, while many brokers have a
preliminary balance sheet struck of the account's work, and this also
falls to the share of what is called the Name or Ticket day. The actual
Pay day spells a sharp and shorter burst of activity. The office is
carpeted with bonds, embroidered with transfers, and effervescing with
cheques, not to mention such details as piles of sandwiches, trays of
ginger and other beer bottles, and similar refreshment for the
sustenance of those who have no time to spare for regular meals. Room,
too, must be reserved for the venerable lady client who wants to sell a
small amount of Consols for cash at the busiest time of the day, and who
looks so pathetically indignant upon being told that the transfer will
not be ready for an hour. But the day spins along at a great pace, and
everyone is thankful when the last batch of cheques goes into the Bank
upon the stroke of four o'clock. Echoes of the settlement haunt the day
following, and if the Pay day chances to fall on a Friday, there is
flying round to be done in order to clear the decks for Sunday. Provided
that the office is not too large a one, the number of duties that call
for attention is varied enough to make a day in a broker's office much
less monotonous than it is in so many other City spheres.