Prices on a tape: what did the stock ticker give investors, and how did prices move onto the screen?

Imagine this: you want to buy a share, but you only know its price from yesterday's newspaper. You do not know whether the price has gone up or down today. In the middle of the 19th century, New York investors were in exactly this position. A telegraph operator solved the problem, and his device entered financial history under the name of the stock ticker.

The problem: the price arrived with a runner boy

On an exchange the price changes all the time, but to know it you had to be on the exchange floor or send a messenger. While the messenger was on his way, the price could change again. In other words, an investor making a decision relied on outdated information.

The solution: the telegraph prints the price on a tape

According to HISTORY.com, the first stock ticker was demonstrated in New York on 15 November 1867. It was created by the telegraph operator Edward Calahan: he adapted a telegraph apparatus so that it printed share prices in letters and figures onto a long paper tape. Now the price travelled from the exchange along the wires to brokerage offices almost instantly.

Calahan also obtained a patent for this device: in the Google Patents database it is recorded as US patent No. 76 157 of 31 March 1868, entitled "Improvement in telegraphic indicators". The origin of its name is simple: according to the description of the Computer History Museum, such machines were called "tickers" because of the ticking sound they made while working.

A business grows out of the ticker

The new invention quickly turned into a company. According to the Edison archive at Rutgers University, the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was formed in New York in 1867 precisely to use Calahan's ticker. Competition was strong too: the young inventor Thomas Edison had improved another printing telegraph at a rival company, and in August 1869 Gold and Stock bought this rival together with Edison's patents. In this way ticker technology kept improving through the work of several inventors.

The ticker tape even entered city culture. MoneyWeek writes that on 28 October 1886 (some sources give 29 October), the day the Statue of Liberty was unveiled, ticker tapes were thrown into the street from the windows of Wall Street offices, and this is remembered as the first "ticker tape parade".

From the tape to the screen

The era of the tape ended in the 20th century: prices now began to appear on computer screens. According to MoneyWeek, Nasdaq was launched on 8 February 1971. The SEC Historical Society (the historical society of the US Securities and Exchange Commission) notes that it was launched as a quotation system and displayed prices for close to 3 000 securities on screen (MoneyWeek writes more than 2 500 securities). In other words, the original task was the same as the ticker's: to deliver the price quickly. Only an electronic screen was used instead of a paper tape.

Then and now

Aspect	The ticker era (late 19th century)	Today
Where the price is seen	On a paper tape in a brokerage office	On a computer and phone screen
Who sees the price	Mainly offices connected to a ticker	Any investor connected to the internet
Carrier of the information	Telegraph wire	Electronic networks
Source of delay	Tape printing speed, the queue in the office	Mainly network and app speed
How the price is written	Abbreviated name and figure on the tape	Short symbol (ticker) and figure on the screen

Interestingly, a share's short symbol is still called a "ticker" today: the device has disappeared, but the name has remained.

Example: what does an outdated price cost?

The calculation below was compiled by the author; the figures are hypothetical.

Ilhom, an investor from Tashkent, saw in the morning news that a company's share cost 12 400 soum and decided to buy 500 shares. But he placed the order 20 minutes later, and in the meantime the price had risen to 12 650 soum.

Indicator	Calculation	Result
The purchase amount Ilhom expected	500 × 12 400	6 200 000 soum
The actual purchase amount	500 × 12 650	6 325 000 soum
Difference	6 325 000 − 6 200 000	125 000 soum
Price change	250 ÷ 12 400 × 100	≈ 2.02%

Ilhom paid 125 thousand soum extra for a 20-minute delay. A 19th-century investor worked with prices that were hours, sometimes a day, out of date. Exchanges adopted the ticker quickly precisely because it sharply reduced this delay. The practical lesson is the same today: when dealing with shares, bonds or currency, check which moment the price refers to.

Link with the previous period: when share trading began in Amsterdam in the 17th century, prices travelled by word of mouth; the ticker moved them onto the wire. The next stage, digital payments and online trading, brought the price into every person's pocket.