- Art Cashin: Caution 'Growing' in Financials, Dividend Moves
- Topless Business Is Taking Off
- 3 Software Stock Picks from Lazard's Senior Analyst
- Schork Oil Outlook: Gas Bulls Pinning Hopes on Mother Nature
- Toyota Makes Recall Fix And So Long Saab
- Investors Bet on a New Year's Rally For eBay
- Why You Should Play the Reflation Trade: Stock Picker
- Citi Mortgage Reveals What Treasury Won't
- S&P to Hit 1,200 by Year-End: Chief Investor
- New-Home Sales Jump to Highest Level in Over Year
- Consumer Mood Improves, But Anxiety Over Finances
- Jobless Claims Below 500,000, Durable Orders Slip
- Garlic Price Rises Surpass Gold, Stocks in China
- Judge Erases Couple's $525,000 Mortgage Payment
- Half of Banks' Losses May Still Be Hidden: IMF Head
- Seeking Deals, Holiday Fliers Get Early Start
- Turkey Day 101: How Well Do You Know Your Bird?
- Americans Ditch Planes for Trains this Thanksgiving
MOST SHARED
- Ritz-Carlton ?Struggling? in the US: President
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Garlic Price Rises Surpass Gold, Stocks in China
- Oil Price to Average $75.40 in 2010: Poll
- Obama Reiterates Commitment to Boost US-India Ties
- Half of Banks' Losses May Still Be Hidden: IMF Head
- New-Home Sales Jump 6.2% To Highest Level in Over Year
- Jobless Claims Below 500,000, Durable Orders Slip
- Americans Ditch Planes for Trains this Thanksgiving
Text Size 
If you’re someone who hates when it gets dark early, you’ll be relieved to know Daylight Saving Time is coming earlier this year. It starts on March 11th – nearly two weeks before the first day of Spring. But don’t do the happy dance, yet. Your PC doesn’t know, and neither do the computers that run the airlines or the trains or just about anything else. What does this mean for business? We asked CNBC’s Margaret Brennan.
The idea of saving daylight was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin who wanted people to get up earlier and save wax by not burning candles at night. (Historians debate whether he was being serious or satirical.) It wasn't until 1916, however, that Daylight Saving Time was first put into practice by the Germans, likely to increase productivity as WWI dragged on longer than expected. In 1918 Congress placed the USA on Daylight Saving Time but it was so widely disliked they repealed the legislation, and didn't introduce it again until WWII.
By 1966, about 100 million Americans were observing Daylight Saving Time through their own state or local laws. Congress then decided to step in, and establish one standard across the country. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 created Daylight Saving Time, then in 1986 the law was modified to make it longer.
"From the beginning the reason we extended daylight saving was retail sales profited," said Michael Downing a professor at Tufts University. “In 1986 the last time we extended the period… the golf industry said it was worth $200 million.”
It’s good for the country and it’s good for our health," added Michael May, Director of Media Relations at the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association. "We live such sedentary lives… when it’s light outside we gravitate to that light.”
For decades now, people have remembered to “Spring forward and Fall back, but that’s about to change.” Starting this year DST begins on March 11th, during the last weeks of Winter and ends on the first Sunday in November.
Congress believes those extra four weeks will save the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day, explained Brennan. As in all things political, not everyone agrees. “The savings have never been realized,” argued Michael Downing, “because we don’t use oil to put on the lights. Electricity is generated by nuclear power and steam.”
And there's the Y2K effect. That's the potential to trip up time-related technology used in ATM's and PDA’s. "If your BlackBerry is set to a default timezone and not the network time, the clock and timestamp on your messages will be incorrect," Brennan said. "Most large vendors like Microsoft[MSFT
Loading...
()
], Sun Microsystems[SUNW
Loading...
()
], IBM[IBM
Loading...
()
] and Cisco [CSCO
Loading...
()
]have posted patches on their websites for customers to download to avoid the glitches."
According to a study done by Gartner, the changeup could cause bank transaction errors and glitches in calendaring applications. For example, Microsoft says Outlook will be affected.
But don’t worry about trading. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ – both told CNBC they don’t expect any complications.
We'll keep you posted.
- Here's how key provisions of the health care reform bill would impact your insurance and how you'll pay for it.
- Playboy will outsource its publishing operations in a bid to become profitable again.
- Remember when auto shows were major events where new models could generate buzz?
- After nine years the NBA’s minor league equivalent is finally coming into its own.
- Bill Griffeth is taking a leave of absence from CNBC and Power Lunch for a year. Here's a message from Bill.
- For nearly three decades, these on-call experts have been dishing advice on how to – and not to – cook turkey.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes