The New Pacific Exchange

For more than 50 years the Los Angeles and San Francisco Stock Exchanges have operated independently of each other--sometimes with a loss of business for both. A Los Angeles broker who wanted to sell stock, for example, often could find no buyers, though there might be dozens in San Francisco. This week, with the Securities and Exchange Commission's approval, the two West Coast exchanges joined together as the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. In 1956 the combined total of the number of shares traded in both exchanges exceeded 38,000,000, making the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange the second largest regional exchange (first: Chicago's Midwest) in the U.S.

Linked by an elaborate communications network, 14 specialists on both floors, each equipped with a phone and a speaker, can complete trading in any of Pacific Coast's 540 listed stocks within 15 seconds. Each of the two exchanges will retain its own officers and employees, appoint four representatives to Pacific Coast's board of governors, alternate the post of chairman between the two cities. Chairman for the first year: William H. Agnew, partner of San Francisco's Shuman, Agnew & Co.

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