Posts Tagged ‘opening bell’

How do they choose who rings the bell at the NYSE/NASDAQ?

Friday, June 18th, 2010

The first way to answer this question is to address the “they.” The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ are two separate entities, though both are stock markets and both are headquartered in New York City. On both exchanges, “opening” and “closing” bells are rung to signal the beginning and end of each trading day. The trading day starts at 9:30am EST and ends at 4:00pm EST.

The logic of who gets to ring these bells is a more interesting question. It’s basically pure public relations and promotional play to ring the opening or closing bell of the NYSE or NASDAQ. Lebron James might stop by to ring the bell because he is in New York playing with the Knicks, or it could be the CEO of Electronic Arts because his company is about to release the latest version of Rock Band. On some days, no one is scheduled to ring the opening or closing bells, and officials from the exchanges have to do the job themselves. Generally speaking, companies and individuals request to ring the bell and the individual exchanges choose who they will allow to do so.

It’s important to remember, though, that ringing the bell to start or end the trading day is a ceremony and has significance. You wouldn’t want to be remembered as the person who rang in the worst trading day of the year. On the other hand, if your company rings the bell on the opening or closing of the best trading day ever, it’s a victory for pretty much everyone!

Why does the NYSE opening bell ring at 9:30?

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

The opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has rung at 9:30am since 1985 when it was changed from 10:00am. The bell starts the daily trading session, which is the time in which all stocks are bought and sold on the trading floor. Until relatively recently, the technology to trade stocks from outside the trading floor didn’t even exist, so the trading session was really the only time when trading took place.

Now trading can be done at all hours from anywhere on the planet – even from your cell phone. However, the majority of trading is still done during the trading session. The board of the NYSE has discussed several times making the bell earlier to extend normal trading hours, but the hours haven’t changed for over 20 years.