MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON
WEDNESDAY. JUNE 20. 1982
A 3
Your Money's
Worth
By SYLVIA PORTER
Copyright, Hall Syndicate, Inc.
NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE FLOOR I
Editor's note: Thii it tha first in a series of three columns
- on the Floor of the New York Stock Exchange
The floor of the New York Stock Exchange, on which the
worried eyes of the world have been riveted since the historic
stock crash of May 28, is a vast place, two-thirds the size of a
football field including its main hall and "garage" which
isn't a garage at all, but is instead a smaller adjoining room
in which such famous stocks as Telephone, Westinghouse,
Union Carbide are traded. Its main hall is five stories high
and has huge windows entirely covered by ruffled drapes to
keep out the sunlight. Scattered through the halls are 18
trading "posts'" around which are always clustered many of
the 2,200 men on the floor on a typical day now.
It's noisy, startlingly untidy, littered with thousands upon
thousands of little pieces of paper of various colors, chewing
gum wrappers, empty pretzel boxes, etc. It is both antiquated
and automated, logical and paradoxical. It's fascinating.
Now I know, for I have just spent several hours probing,
peeking, peering, picking up scraps of paper at the floor of
the NYSE. Nothing amusing is happening on Wall Street
these days, but this tale is funny. So is its background, and
it's loaded with information. So here is the first of three
columns about the floor of the Stock Exchange.
To begin at the beginning, early in May I took an
executive visiting New York City to see the world's largest
stock exchange on which 85 per cent of the dollar volume
of all listed U.S. stocks is traded. He got on the floor, but
1 didn't. While there is no constitutional provision or rule
or regulation against women visiting the floor, "protocol"
demands that a female get permission from on high and
therefore, while the executive toured the floor with a
guide, I was banished to the public gallery to watch with
other sightseers. With acid tongue in dimpled cheek, I
wrote a column about my experience.
When it appeared, letters and phone calls of protest
deluged the NYSE, the collective face of the NYSE's Big
Brass turned brick red and, within 48 hours, I received a
letter from Keith Funslon, president of the NYSE and a
long-time friend (which he told me later he had written
nn the back of an envelope as soon as he had finished read
ing the column). It began:
"The President of the New York Stock Exchange and
assorted embarrased Vice Presidents cordially invite Miss
Sylvia Porter to accompany them to the Floor of the Ex
change cither as a woman or a reporter, preferably as both,
at a day and hour to suit her. . . ." He also invited me to
lunch in the president's private dining room.
Between the invitation and my visit, the market cracked
up and I felt it inappropriate for me to presume on any
NYSE official's time during that period, but last week, on
a day the market was crumbling but was not chaotic, Funston
and I had our date. I went to his office, he handed me a
big purple orchid, we and the assorted embarrassed vice
president's had an excellent lunch and some deep-down talk
about the economy in the private dining room and then I,
my orchid and my entourage descended to the floor. Some
side angles that hit me were:
The litter: Each transaction in stocks involves three
pieces of paper a story I'll seriously report tomorrow. In
addition, the men walk around with pads on which they are
constantly scribbling memos, quotes, notes and playing tick-tack-toe
too, I noticed and then dropping the pieces of
paper wherever they happen to be standing. They don't
smoke on the floor but they chew gum, eat candy and
crackers and also drop the wrappers or boxes. "Don't do
it!" cried my favorite vp when he saw the gleam in my house
wife's eye and watched me pick up a gum wrapper. Hah.
The noise: The NYSE has a rule provocatively called
"open out cry" which means all transactions must be stated
nut loud so there'll be no secrets among the men. They "open
out cry" indeed all the lime and when something im
portant happens, they shout with abandon. The noise ranges
from a persistent hum to an uproar.
The contrast between icy calm and freniy. The NYSE has
another rule "You gotta walk, not run." The men don't run
as they move from post to post to trade stocks and pieces of
paper cold eye to cold eye but they sure rush. Their move
ments are often frenzied, their voices excited, but their eyes
- they're ice.
Next: How your stock order is handled on the floor.
Refrigerated Food Stocks Top Record
Washington-flJPII-Refrigeral-
ed food stocks in warehouses
totaled 4.9 billion pounds on
June 1, the largest ever for
the date, aocording to the
agriculture department.
These stocks included froz
rn orange concentrate, 30 mil
lion gallons; frozen turkeys,
131 million pounds; frozen
fruit stocks, 308 million
pounds; frozen vegetable
stocks, 874 million pounds;
butter, 385 million pounds;
American cheese, 415 million
pounds; shell eggs, 325,000
cases; frozen egg stocks, 88
million pounds; red meat, 583
million pounds.
The red meat supplies were
11 per cent larger than a year
earlier and 5 per cent above
the June 1 average. The in
crease in red meal supplies
over a year earlier resulted
primarily from larger hold
ings of pork, which were 26
per cent larger than on June
1, 1961, and 7 per cent above
average.
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