First stock ticker debuts 1867
On this day in 1867, the first stock ticker is unveiled in New
York City. The advent of the ticker ultimately revolutionized the stock
market by making up-to-the-minute prices available to investors around
the country. Prior to this development, information from the New York
Stock Exchange, which has been around since 1792, traveled by mail or
messenger.
The ticker was the brainchild of Edward Calahan, who configured a
telegraph machine to print stock quotes on streams of paper tape (the
same paper tape later used in ticker-tape parades). The ticker, which
caught on quickly with investors, got its name from the sound its type
wheel made.
Calahan worked for the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, which
rented its tickers to brokerage houses and regional exchanges for a fee
and then transmitted the latest gold and stock prices to all its
machines at the same time. In 1869, Thomas Edison, a former telegraph
operator, patented an improved, easier-to-use version of Calahan’s
ticker. Edison’s ticker was his first lucrative invention and, through
the manufacture and sale of stock tickers and other telegraphic devices,
he made enough money to open his own lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey,
where he developed the light bulb and phonograph, among other
transformative inventions.
The last mechanical stock ticker debuted in 1960 and was eventually
replaced by computerized tickers with electronic displays. A ticker
shows a stock’s symbol, how many shares have traded that day and the
price per share. It also tells how much the price has changed from the
previous day’s closing price and whether it’s an up or down change. A
common misconception is that there is one ticker used by everyone. In
fact, private data companies run a variety of tickers; each provides
information about a select mix of stocks.
(More Events on This Day in History)
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American Revolution
- 1777 Articles of Confederation adopted
-
Automotive
- 1965 Craig Breedlove sets new land-speed record
-
Civil War
- 1864 The March to the Sea begins
-
Cold War
- 1957 Nikita Khrushchev challenges United States to a missile “shooting match”
-
Crime
- 1923 Accused of rape, James Montgomery’s struggle for justice begins
-
Disaster
- 1978 Plane crashes into Sri Lankan plantation
-
General Interest
- 1889 Brazil’s last emperor deposed
- 1891 Erwin Rommel is born
- 1984 Baby Fae dies
-
Hollywood
- 1956 Elvis makes movie debut in Love Me Tender
-
Literary
- 1859 Final installment of A Tale of Two Cities is published
-
Music
- 1943 Leonard Bernstein’s Philharmonic debut makes front-page news
-
Old West
- 1806 Zebulon Pike spots an imposing mountain
-
Presidential
- 1977 President Carter hosts shah of Iran
-
Sports
- 1965 Craig Breedlove sets new land-speed record
-
Vietnam War
- 1966 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs heckled at university
- 1969 Second moratorium against the war held
-
World War I
- 1917 Georges Clemenceau named French prime minister
-
World War II
- 1943 Himmler orders Gypsies to concentration camps
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