Robot Rings Closing Bell and Everything’s Fine
ROBO Global and NYSE celebrate a partnership that’s changed how the finance world views robotics.
I wonder if the robot uprising will be this anticlimactic.
The first robot in history to ring the New York Stock Exchange closing bell didn’t swing a gavel, though it could’ve. Instead the Universal Robot’s gray, UR5 e robot arm pressed a button at precisely 4 PM ET on Wednesday for 2 seconds to signal the close of trading. Then it did a little dance.
“You have to have a little theater. You have to put in a show,” said Stu Shepherd, Regional Sales Director, America’s, for Universal Robots, after the ceremony, acknowledging that perfectly executing the program of button pushing for his sophisticated yet easy-to-program industrial robot wasn’t really enough.
His robot wasn’t even the point of this tiny demonstration. The UR5 e rang the NYSE bell to celebrate another milestone, 5 years since ROBO Global launched its ROBO ETF (also known as a portfolio). It’s essentially a multi-billion-dollar index of robotics, automation and AI companies. They were also celebrating ROBO Global’s new relationship with the NYSE.
“It defined the robotics universe for investors,” said ROBO Global CEO Travis Brigg who told me…
