After The Bell

It's a horse race from 9:30 to 4 every day in New York City. Only instead of horses running around a track, it's stocks and bonds and other securities.

Then a bell rings, and two things happen. A) a dog drools and B) stocks stop officially trading. It is in this next thirty to sixty minutes that many companies take the opportunity to announce their quarterly results, or special events like a merger, or a CEO being caught on video with their mistress.

The bell moniker is a relic of bygone times when, at the end of the day, an actual bell was rung. It was, for better or worse, replaced with electronic, synthesized noises replicating a bell in today's way-too-high-tech world.