Stock Ticker / Ticker Tape

Both the ticker and ticker tape lowered the cost of transmitting stock prices by eliminating the need for a person to translate them to and from Morse Code.

Subsequently, this innovation served as a bridge from specialists required to send and receive telegraph messages to plain-text transmissions.

Edward Calahan saw people rushing from the floor of a stock exchange to teletypes. He realized a machine could automate the task.

Stock tickers – essentially printing telegraphs – enabled more widespread and faster investing, fueling Wall Street and financing countless innovations.

Edison subsequently created a better ticker. Heis often wrongly credited as the original innovator.

Mechanical stock tickers were manufactured until 1960 when they were overtaken by electronic versions.