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.