The New York Stock Exchange's well-known bell marks the beginning and ending of each trading day. More specifically, the opening bell is rung at 9:30 AM ET, and the closing bell is rung at 4:00 PM ET.
But the signal to stop and start trading wasn't always the bell we know today -- it was originally a Chinese gong. It wasn't until 1903 when the gong was replaced by a brass bell.
NYSE Archivist Pete Asch joined TheStreet to discuss the evolution of the NYSE bell.
Full Video Transcript Below:
J.D. DURKIN: I'm fascinated with the evolution of the bell. Everyone knows the opening bell. The closing bell from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It's one of the most highly sought after opportunities for business leaders. Politicians, prominent people all around the world want to do that. But the evolution of it is really cool. It might not be as intuitive as people think. Why is there a bell anyway?
PETE ASCH: So it's very simple. When we open each day, we need a way to let everyone know we're going to start trading. And then that idea goes back to the 1870s in the 1870s. We switched to what we have today a continuous market and we used that originally, we used a Chinese gong to open the floor. And then when this building opened in 1903, we added the bell, but the bell was in the back. You know, most people have this memory of it being front and center where it is now. It's only been there for five years. It was in the back because we had no idea that people would be interested.
And it's actually a funny story about that. Jeff Sprecher, who is the founder and chairman of ICE, the parent company of New York Stock Exchange, when he brought his company public in 2005, he called his mom very excited to let him know I made it. I rang the bell, the New York Stock Exchange, and his mom's response is, I didn't see any bell. And so one of the things he did when he acquired the New York Stock exchange, when he renovated the floor, was he put the bell front and center. So that way, when someone's ringing the bell, you see the bell that they're ringing.
