ABSTRACT
Many retail brokerage offices still display the electronic stock ticker with its difficult-to-read symbols, characters, and messages flashing by in an instant. Occasionally, individuals gather around the long flickering sign, transfixed by letters and numbers flashing before their eyes. Brokers who have been in the business for many years tell of a time when employees wearing telephone headsets wrote current stock prices on a large chalkboard which could be seen by everyone in “the pit.” Obtaining current, accurate price information depended on good telephone lines and the speed of those holding the chalk. Due to the arrival of the Internet and on-line information services, the individual investor can now access the same information available to the stockbroker. The day will come when the individual investor can invest in stocks of corporations around the world, through either a local stock exchange or the stock exchange located in virtually any foreign country.
