Other critics would have the List greatly expanded, so that official prices might be obtainable for a number of securities more in accordance with the number of those in which dealing actually takes place. These critics say that if the inclusion of all kinds of securities would be inexpedient, as altering the character of the List, then a supplementary list should be issued. Yet other critics say that the prices should be made up to a later hour. The latest profess to be 3.30 o'clock prices, whilst as a matter of fact, they are in the great majority of cases collected half an hour previously; and whilst the official closing time of the Stock Exchange is half-past three o'clock, the House remains open until four o'clock, and dealings go on inside the House until that hour.
Even after the Stock Exchange is closed, of course, business is transacted in what is called the Street Markets. Generally speaking, business in only the most speculative securities is transacted in the street after hours. Dealers in South African mining shares block Throgmorton Street itself for a couple of hours, more or less, according to the activity of business; and dealers in American railroad shares occupy Shorter's Court, a diminutive square just off Throgmorton Street, with which it is connected by a covered way, an entrance to the Stock Exchange being situated in the square. The Street Market in Americans is legitimate in a special sense, because business in New York has been going on for less than an hour when our market is closing, and, of course, the trend of prices in New York has a considerable effect upon quotations here. But the Stock Exchange recognises no street dealings of any kind, and has never done anything to encourage business after hours, in spite of various suggestions that have been made, especially at the time when several members found themselves in the police court, charged with causing an obstruction in Throgmorton Street.
Partly because prices are made up officially only to 3.30 o'clock, but more because brokers desire to furnish their clients with the prices of stocks and shares in which they are specially interested, many brokers compile price lists of their own for despatch to their clients. For practical purposes these smaller lists are more serviceable than the great Official List, as the quotations are not only later, but, being less wide, give more idea of the prices actually prevailing. Another way in which prices are conveyed from the Stock Exchange to the outside world, and a way much more expeditious than by either the Official List or the brokers' lists, is through the medium of the tape machines of the Exchange Telegraph Company. These tape machines are to be found in brokers' offices, clubs, and wherever a subscriber may care to have them, and from the ingenious instrument the tape issues forth all day, showing not only the prices, but the time at which they are quoted.