A closer look

Long before multiple glowing monitors dominated trading floors, Wall Street's nervous system was completely reliant on loud, jamming mechanical telegraphs. Invented in 1867, the ticker machine tapped out stock abbreviations and prices on endless miles of thin paper ribbon. It was revolutionary for its time, creating the first real-time financial network. Today, the paper is gone, but we kept the term 'ticker' to describe the digital numbers currently draining your 401k.