Big Board Bell May Be a Bellwether

Is the bell tolling for the New York Stock Exchange’s daily market-opening ritual?

On three mornings last week, the exchange refrained from its daily ceremony in which invited guests, who have included actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former South African President Nelson Mandela, ring the opening bell for TV viewers around the world.

The longest bear market since the Great Depression and the Iraq war may have dampened enthusiasm for the 8-year-old practice.

“People are not in a celebratory mood,” said Clive Chajet, chairman of Chajet Consultancy, who recently rang the opening bell at the neighboring American Stock Exchange after advising that exchange on marketing.

Ringing the opening bell last Monday: Susan Byrne, chief executive of Westwood Holdings Group Inc., a Dallas-based institutional money manager celebrating its 20th anniversary. Martin Torelli, of the NYSE brokerage Prime Executions, rang the bell Friday. His brother, Lt. Col. Christopher Torelli, is with an Army counter-terrorism unit overseas.

Robert Zito, the exchange’s executive vice president for communications, didn’t return calls for comment.

When the exchange skips the opening bell ceremony, a floor official pushes a button that clangs a 10-second bell in each of the exchange’s five trading rooms. It kicks off U.S. trading in stocks at 9:30 a.m.

Commercializing the opening bell began in 1995, when exchange Chairman Richard Grasso, elevated to the top job after working his way up the ranks, began promoting the NYSE as a “brand.”

Zito approached General Electric Co.’s CNBC financial news network, which was broadcasting from the American Stock Exchange, and suggested that CNBC do live reports from the NYSE floor. The bell ceremony now is broadcast on about two dozen networks around the world and reaches 110 million viewers a day.

But NYSE staffers cautioned not to read too much into the silence. Chief executives of the exchange’s 2,800 listed companies often ask to ring the bell to mark anniversaries or promotions, and the lull may be a fluke of scheduling.

But the ringing also is a perk for companies going public, and just three this year debuted on the Big Board.

“The IPO business,” Grasso acknowledged, “is virtually nonexistent.”