Paper Certificates to Real-Time

I was reminded recently of how far stock trading has come when I inherited a small stack of old stock certificates from my great-uncle Billy. They were dated between 1927 and 1931, right through the turbulent years of the Great Depression. One was for a railroad, issued by Citibank itself. And yes—I checked—they’re now completely worthless. But holding those fragile pieces of paper in my hands brought history to life. Back then, making a trade was slow, costly, and out of reach for most people. Orders were handled with paper tickets and phone calls, commissions often ran around one percent of the trade’s value, and it could take days before ownership was officially confirmed.

Over the decades, technology and regulation transformed both the cost and speed of trading. The first big shift came in the 1970s, when fixed commissions were abolished. For the first time, brokers could compete on price, and discount firms began offering lower-cost services. In the 1990s, the rise of online platforms allowed everyday investors to place their own orders with just a click, driving prices down further. By the 2000s, trades could be made for less than ten dollars and executed within seconds.

The final plunge in cost came in the 2010s, when new platforms introduced zero-commission trading. Established firms followed suit, and today buying or selling a stock can be done instantly and without any direct fee. What once cost the equivalent of thousands of dollars now costs nothing at all.

And yet, one part of the old system remains: settlement. While an order today executes in milliseconds, the official transfer of ownership and cash still takes time. The United States recently shortened the process from two business days to just one. The next step being discussed is “T+0,” or same-day settlement, and eventually real-time settlement, where the trade, cash, and ownership all exchange hands immediately.

The Journey in Perspective



Era
Typical Cost of a Trade
Time for Execution / Settlement
Context


1900
~1% of trade value (≈ $100 per $10k; $10k then ≈ $380k today; $100 then ≈ $3.8k today)
2–3 days
Manual tickets, phone calls, mailed confirms


1975
$30–$100 per trade
Hours to next day
Fixed commissions abolished; price competition begins


1995
$15–$20 per trade
Minutes to an hour
Online trading for retail investors


2005
$5–$10 per trade
Seconds to minutes
Electronic exchanges and direct access


2015
$0–$5 per trade
Seconds
Zero-commission models proliferate


Today
$0 per trade
Milliseconds (execution), 1 day (settlement)
Instant fills; ownership transfer still lags



Why Settlement Still Takes Time

Liquidity buffers: Firms need time to marshal the cash or shares.
Error correction: Short delays catch mismatches and mistakes.
Global coordination: Different time zones and rules complicate instant transfers.
Legacy systems: The financial “plumbing” that handles trillions wasn’t built for real-time.

History suggests these barriers will fall. Experiments with new technology, including distributed ledgers and tokenized assets, are testing ways to move securities and cash instantly. Regulators are encouraging shorter cycles to reduce risk. It may take years, but just as commissions collapsed from $100 to zero, settlement time is on a path from days to seconds. And if trades can settle instantly, markets could even move toward 24/7 access, much like digital assets already do.

Do you think 24/7 stock trading would be a good idea, or would it create more problems than it solves?

*Research and editing was assisted by AI

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