The ring and the working of the exchange

Trading around the ring

The method by which securities were traded in Zurich from the late nineteenth century until 1996 was the ring. Traders stood around a circular barrier in the hall and called out their bids and offers for each security in turn. Transactions were concluded by word of mouth and recorded by clerks. The technique came from Paris, where the corbeille of the agents de change had long been the centre of the Bourse, before reaching Switzerland through Geneva, which the Swiss Finance Museum names as the first Swiss exchange to introduce ring trading in 1850.¹ In Zurich the ring became so closely identified with the exchange that the Swiss National Museum, in an article on the history of speculation, illustrates Zurich ring trading as the form in which stock exchange business was carried out in Switzerland until 1996.²

Ring trading suited a market of modest size, in which a limited number of members dealt in a limited number of securities during a short daily session. Each security was called in sequence, whereupon the members who wished to trade in it expressed their interest by open outcry. The price at which a transaction was concluded became known at once to everyone present and was then entered in the official price list. Transparency within the ring was therefore high, while access to it was restricted to members and their licensed representatives. The combination of a closed circle of participants and an open formation of prices is the core of the traditional exchange. It explains why the licensing of intermediaries, which the 1883 law introduced, was the central instrument of regulation. Whoever controlled access to the ring controlled the integrity of the prices it produced.

The practical organisation of the Zurich ring before 1914, including the order in which securities were called, the length of the session and the role of the officials who recorded prices, is described in the centenary history in its chapter on technique and people at the exchange.³ What can be said with confidence is that the ring remained the heart of Zurich trading for more than a century. When the bond ring closed on 15 August 1996, the Swiss Finance Museum speaks of the end of 140 years of ring trading in Switzerland, a period that it counts from Geneva’s adoption of the method.⁴

The official price list

The second pillar of the exchange was the price list. A price is useful only if it is known and trusted only if it is recorded by someone whom the market accepts as neutral. From its beginnings in the 1850s, the Zurich Börsenverein published a Kursblatt, whose development up to 1870 the centenary history follows in a separate chapter. The centenary history also has a chapter on the “Vorboten der Börse in der Presse”, the forerunners of the exchange in the newspapers.

Under the cantonal legislation, the price list acquired public significance. The Zurich Wertpapiergesetz of 1912 later made the canton’s obligation to provide premises for the exchange dependent on the publication of an official price list, in return for fees from exchange trading.⁵ The official price list mattered far beyond the ring. Banks used it to value securities pledged as collateral. Courts and guardianship authorities used it to value the assets of estates and wards. Tax authorities relied on it to assess wealth, while trustees and foundations used it to account for their investments. By giving the Kursblatt official status, the canton turned the price formed in the ring into a public fact on which private and public decisions could be based.

The daily life of the exchange

Before 1914 the main participants on the Zurich exchange were the brokers and agents licensed under the cantonal law, the representatives of the banks, and a public of investors who followed prices through the newspapers and gave orders to their banks. The range of securities was limited, with a number of transactions in each that was small by later standards. The exchange was nonetheless the place where the financial community of Zurich met every day, exchanged information and formed its judgement about the prospects of companies and of the economy.

This social function of the exchange is easy to underestimate. The Zurich exchange brought together, in one hall and at one hour, the private bankers of the old merchant families, the managers of the Kreditanstalt and the other commercial banks, the independent brokers and the representatives of foreign houses. Personal trust among these participants was the basis of a market in which transactions worth thousands of francs were concluded by word of mouth. Reputation built in the ring carried over into other forms of business, such as syndicates, underwriting and advisory mandates. The informal networks of the Zurich financial centre, which still play a considerable role in the placement of securities and in the appointment of board members, have one of their roots in the daily meetings at the exchange.

Notes

1. Swiss Finance Museum, “The history of trading”, https://www.finanzmuseum.ch/en/home/visit/guided-tours/history-of-trading.html. ↩
2. Swiss National Museum, blog, “The dream of a quick profit”, 2022, https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2022/12/the-dream-of-a-quick-profit/. ↩
3. Schmid and Meier, Die Geschichte der Zürcher Börse, table of contents (chapter “Technik und Menschen an der Börse”), https://urn.ub.unibe.ch/urn:ch:slsp:zbz:991132393929705501:ihv:pdf. ↩
4. Swiss Finance Museum, “The history of trading”, https://www.finanzmuseum.ch/en/home/visit/guided-tours/history-of-trading.html. The museum notes that 350 traders were still working in the ring exchange before its closure and that the first female trader began in 1988. ↩
5. “Neue Börse (Zürich)”, Wikipedia (German), https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_B%C3%B6rse_(Z%C3%BCrich). According to the article, the Securities Act of 1912 required the canton to provide a location for the exchange for as long as it published official price sheets, and gave the canton fees from exchange trading in return. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.