Inscribing my name in Wall Street history

How I unexpectedly rang the the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

Two of my guiding beliefs have always contradicted one another:

1. Serendipity drives everything

2. There is no such thing as coincidence

Most of the time, I can lean one way or the other without reconciling the two.

Not today.

This afternoon, I was unexpectedly included in a group to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange — the ritual that marks the end of the trading day, broadcast globally to millions of viewers.

I had gone to the exchange to celebrate the launch of a new financial show, Taking Stock, which will air weekdays at 4 PM ET. I’ll be joining as a recurring commentator to talk markets and investing.

But a weekly segment hardly explains why I was given a spot in the bell-ringing ceremony with the show’s biggest stakeholders.

This honor is typically reserved for public company executives, celebrities and superstar athletes.

In any case, afterwards I — alongside the media and finance heavyweights leading Taking Stock — signed the historic wall in the stairwell that leads to the bell.

Everyone who has ever rung it inscribes their name there in permanent marker.

That, somehow, now includes me.

When I asked several producers and exchange executives — many of them friends — who had added my name to the closing bell list, no one had an answer. Just smiles and shrugs and enthusiastic handshakes.

So I can’t explain this bucket-list experience.

What I do know is that I’ve spent the last four years writing everyday about the very markets I looked out on from that podium.

My ceremony name tag and the commemorative token they gave everyone.

No amount of work guarantees something this cool, but the effort does make it feel less like coincidence.

Maybe it was luck.

Maybe it was a mistake.

Either way, my name’s on the wall.

Phil Rosen
Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, Opening Bell Daily

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