STOCK MARKET WATCH - Wednesday, 15 February 2012

[TalkingDog]

57. Junius Peake, Early Advocate of Electronic Securities Trading, Dies at 80

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-13/junius-peake-early-advocate-of-electronic-trading-dies-in-colorado-at-80.html

Peake, known as Jay, had a front-row view as Wall Street firms were inundated by paper during what became known as the back-office crisis of the late 1960s. As partner in charge of operations at the Manhattan brokerage firm Shields & Co., he oversaw the use of a $500,000 computer system the firm purchased in 1964 from National Cash Register Co., now known as NCR Corp.

The computer, which some employees called “the monster,” calmed the frenzy of settlement days, the New York Times reported in a 1965 article. “Our overtime has been minimal recently,” Peake told the Times.

The back-office experience shaped Peake’s view that buying and selling by shouting on trading floors such as the New York Stock Exchange “was no longer viable in the modern world and that it was essential to move to automated trading,” he wrote in a four-page summary of his career. “This was a change in which I passionately believed, and I began to express my opinions and suggestions for change in many articles and papers, which led to me being asked to testify at various congressional hearings.”