NYSE Archivist Pete Asch discusses the evolution of the NYSE Bell.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 I'm fascinated with the evolution of the bell.
00:02 Everyone knows the opening bell, the closing bell
00:04 from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
00:06 It is one of the most highly sought after opportunities
00:09 for business leaders, politicians, prominent people,
00:11 Pete, all around the world wanna do that.
00:14 But the evolution of it is really cool.
00:15 It might not be as intuitive as people think.
00:17 Why is there a bell anyway?
00:18 - So it's very simple.
00:19 When we open 9203, we need a way to let everyone know
00:21 we're gonna start trading.
00:22 And then that idea goes back actually to the 1870s.
00:25 In the 1870s, we switched to what we have today,
00:27 a continuous market.
00:28 And we used, originally we used a Chinese gong
00:30 to open the floor.
00:31 And then when this building opened in 1903,
00:32 we added the bell.
00:33 But the bell was in the back.
00:34 You know, most people had this memory
00:35 of it being front and center where it is now.
00:37 It's only been there for five years.
00:39 It was in the back because we had no idea
00:40 that people would be interested.
00:41 And there's actually a funny story about that.
00:43 Jeff Sprecher, who is the founder and chairman of ICE,
00:45 the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange,
00:47 when he brought his company public in 2005,
00:50 he called his mom very excited to let her know.
00:52 Like, I made it, I rang the bell at the New York Stock
00:53 Exchange, and his mom's response was,
00:55 "I didn't see any bell."
00:57 And so one of the things he did when he acquired
00:59 the New York Stock Exchange, when he renovated the floor,
01:01 was he put the bell front and center.
01:03 So that way, when his mom was ringing the bell,
01:05 you see the bell that they're ringing.
01:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]