FLASH FRIDAY is a weekly content series looking at the past, present and future of capital markets trading and technology. FLASH FRIDAY is sponsored by Instinet, a Nomura company.
It’s been a hot summer. June 2023 was record hot for many parts of the U.S. July was certainly unpleasant in New York, which saw extended periods of excessive heat and humidity.
Remember when the New York Stock Exchange closed because of the heat?
Well, that’s a trick question, because the Big Board has indeed been up and running all summer. But the NYSE did close on August 4, 1917 — 106 years ago today — because of a heat wave. (Nobody in 2023 can remember this, because even if there were say, a 17-year-old runner working the floor in 1917, they would be 123 years old today.)
According to Begin to Invest, on This Day in Stock Market History in 1917, “Scorching hot temperatures force the NYSE to close for the day. Temperatures had been over 98 degrees for 6 consecutive days.”
A New York Sun newspaper clipping from Aug. 5, 1917 told the story. “Outside of routine banking business operations in the financial district yesterday were reduced to a minimum. The Stock Exchange, the grain, cotton, coffee and sugar markets were closed; likewise the Consolidated Stock Exchange. Activities in speculative and investment quarters were suspended because of the special “heat” holiday which the governors of the different exchanges declared.”
Okay, temperatures over 98 degrees Fahrenheit for almost a week is quite a heat wave, and one can only imagine what the “feels like” temperature was. But surely, today’s NYSE and Nasdaq wouldn’t close because it’s hot outside, because (cue Captain Obvious) … air conditioning!
Air-con existed in 1917, but kind of like generative AI is today — it leaned into the future but was not in widespread use at the time. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a rudimentary artificial cooling system was patented in 1851, but then development went quiet until the very early 20th century, when Willis Carrier designed a more modern system. A cool auditorium at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair was “the first time the American public was exposed to the concept of comfort cooling.”
In New York City, a milestone occurred five years after the NYSE closure. From the DOE: “In May 1922 at Rivoli Theater in New York, Carrier publicly debuted a new type of system that used a centrifugal chiller, which had fewer moving parts and compressor stages than existing units. The breakthrough system increased the reliability and lowered the cost of large-scale air conditioners, greatly expanding their use throughout the country.”
It’s unclear whether the NYSE floor was air conditioned in August 1917, and if so, how effective it was. History.com says the NYSE building on 18 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan opened in 1903 and “was the earliest in America to feature air conditioning, with a system designed by engineer Alfred Wolff.”
So perhaps only parts of the NYSE building were air conditioned and the trading floor wasn’t, hence the Aug. 4, 1917 closure? Or perhaps the rudimentary A/C system couldn’t keep up with extreme heat?
That’s a story for another day. Today, NYSE traders can enjoy the cool comfort of an air conditioned exchange floor, and traders can expect exchanges to stay open regardless if it’s 100 degrees or 0 degrees.
