Stock Exchange

Stock Exchange, "THE LONDON, is a voluntary association of those who deal in the various securities which pass by the common name of stocks and shares. It has not enjoyed a single legal privilege, yet it has thriven, and the public have neglected more than one effort to establish an oren market to resort to it for business and to give it exclusive confidence." It is actually a Proprietary Company, dating back from the end of the last century, when business was conducted in the Rotunda of the Bank of England and in a coffee-house in Threadneedle Street, to which the public were admitted. In 1801, however, a site in Capel Court was acquired and a building erected which was opened in 1802 with some 500 subscribers. A code of regulations was printed in 1812, and, with numerous additions and modifications to suit altered conditions, exists at the present day. The administration of the Stock Exchange, or "The Honse," as it is familiarly called, is vested in (1) the Managers, representing the shareholders in the company as a joint-stock undertaking and (2) the Committee for General Purposes, representing the general body of subscribers. This committee consists of 30 members, including a chairman and deputy-chairman; it controls the business of the House, modifies the code of rules and regulations, or frames new ones as may be necessary, and adjusts disputes between members, or even between members and non-members when the latter desire it. Every year in March the committee proceeds to elect or reelect all members for the year next, ensuing, after which it is itself reconstituted. Few changes, however, actually occur, save such as are due to death or withdrawal from business. The subscribers now number some 4,200, and these alone (and such of their clerks as are "admitted") have the right of entry. They are divided into two classes: (1) Dealers or Jobbers, who act as middleemen, and devote their attention severally to partlcular classes of securities in which they deal, thus forming various groups or "markets" in the House; and (2) Brokers, who act as intermediaries between the public and the jobbers. This distinction does not hold good for the provincial markets, in which only brokers are found. The general business of the Stock Exchange consists in the buying and selling of securities, of which the principal are English, Colonial, and Foreign Government stocks, and the stocks and shares of railways, banks, and industrial concerns, embracing all joint-stock companies. Transactions are, in the great majority of cases, made for settlement on the "account-day" next succeeding, two of such days being appointed by the committee every month, one about the middle and the other at the end. Transactions in English and Indian Government stocks, however, are made either for "cash" or for the "consol, settlement, which takes place once a month. An "official list" is published daily, showing the nominal quotation of all the principal securities dealt in, and the prices at which "bargains" have actually been done on that day. It will be seen that the London Stock Exchange thus supphes a very real need of the present day, offering to the public a ready means of buying or selling securities at current market prices.