Another technology development that substantially affected the brokerage business was the telephone. The first telephone was introduced to the exchange in 1878 only two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented it. The telephone eliminated the need for messengers. With the telephone, the business of trading stocks soared. In a way, technology has not change the basic principles of investing very much from 100 years ago.
Investors still get stock prices and volume.
The difference today is that over 10,000 stocks are traded versus just a couple hundred years ago. More people have access to the information. The DJ wire, though, is giving way to some extent to the transmission of financial information over television. The breadth of information and analysis is growing every day. No longer will investors be confined to only a few publications to get good investment ideas.