From Wall Street to Chicago, why stock exchanges ring bells

New York
CNN
 — 

The New York Stock Exchange opens every workday morning at 9:30 am ET with the fast-paced bang-clang of a gleaming brass bell. The stock exchange, the largest in the world by market capitalization, has opened with sonic fanfare for more than 150 years.

The sound, so iconic it is trademarked, reverberates across the trading floor again just before 4 pm ET, when the stock market closes. Once a hubbub of screaming floor brokers and countless sheets of paper strewn on the ground, much of the trading is now electronic in NYSE’s hybrid market. The mayhem has largely died down.

From Wall Street to the Nasdaq Exchange in Times Square to the Chicago Board Options Exchange, loud, ringing bells bookend each trading session.

Stock exchanges say that the bell ringing remains both a critical guide and a ceremony that celebrates the market’s resilience through devastating lows and exuberant highs.

“There may be less people responding to those bells, but there’s still a significant percentage,” said Peter Asch, the NYSE’s chief historian. “That bell is an important marker for them, whether they’re putting the order in electronically or physically going to the point of sale.”

The New York Stock Exchange had about 5,000 people on the floor at its most crowded, between the 1950s and the beginning of the 21st century. Now, there’s roughly 300, according to Asch. There are cameras and producers for business television networks that film at the exchange and invited guests. The exchange is not open to the public.

Anyone can apply to ring the NYSE bell. There is an online form to fill out and no fee. But there are requirements.

Guests from President Ronald Reagan to tennis legend Serena Williams to the cast of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” to South African President Nelson Mandela have rung the bell. The bell ringing has also become an honor (or a marketing opportunity) for many CEOs, often commemorating a special occasion such as an initial public offering.

The opportunity is first reserved for companies listed on the NYSE, but other organizations and non-profits are also invited.

Unlike at the NYSE, where the bell is rung electronically via a button that must be held down, the Chicago Board Options Exchange bell must be manually rung using a tassel. The opening bell rings at the same time as those of the New York exchanges, and the closing bell is rung at 3:15 pm CT (4:15 pm ET) when Cboe’s index options products close.

David Howson, global president at Cboe Global Markets, says that he recommends guests give the tassel at least five strong yanks to produce a sound loud enough to pierce through the trading floor din. But guests are sometimes timid with the ringing, he says, and the workers on the floor don’t always make things easier.

“We did have a short period of time where the traders on the floor were trying to encourage the bell ringer to ring the bell early … just for a bit of fun,” said Howson.

For others, the bell ringing has been cause for a different kind of cheer. Mark McCooey, a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley, was a floor broker at the NYSE from 1990 to 1997. He recalls eating lunch standing up and being on alert even when going to the…