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Technology Stocks : Audio and Radio on the Internet- NAVR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zurdo who wrote (11964)	3/23/1999 8:45:00 PM
From: Curbstone	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 27722

I still feel good about NAVR's chances of making one of those wild Internet runs. And I'm with you on NAVR's movement today too. It held out very well considering the market. I hope SI's new boss gives us the "Shitcan This Poster" button. I think a toilet icon complete with flushing sound would be nice. <G> I put in the email to change my moniker to Curbstone. It is a reference to brokers and traders circa 1870-1890. For your edification, here is a quote from the book, "Understanding Wall Street." It taught me everything I know about the "curbstone brokers." By 1850 Wall Street was throbbing with activity. Gold had been discovered in California and the country turned its attention to the West. Mining stocks and railroad shares were especially popular. Many issues, considered too speculative by the Board, were eagerly traded by non-members. Few could afford office space so they traded in the street. By the late 1870's, the corner of William and Beaver Streets filled daily with brokers shouting out orders to buy and sell. They were called "curbstone brokers" and their market was known as the Curb. In the early 1890's, when the Curb was moved to Broad Street for more room, many brokers took offices in the nearby Mills Building. There, telephone clerks took orders and shouted them to the brokers below. But with several hundred brokers being called, more or less simultaneously, shouting soon proved futile. A system of hand signaling was developed (parts of which are still used today) to convey price and volume information to the waiting brokers. Clerks would lean out the windows of the Mills Building or balanced precariously on an outside ledge working their fingers furiously. The brokers below often wore brightly-colored, or otherwise distinctive clothing allowing the clerks to spot them in the crowd. Although it looked like pandemonium, the brokers knew that certain stocks were traded at specific landmarks, usually lamp posts. Action was brisk in any kind of weather. So let it be known, both hither and yon, that henceforth Aloha Mike shall be known as Curbstone.