First day trading floor impressions
click, Click, CLICK! CLICK!!!!!
When I first stepped onto the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade at 5:30 a.m. in April 1989, two things struck me: 1) an incessant, unsynchronized clicking that rose and fell in volume and 2) that it was really cold.
The clicking sound came from hundreds of timestamp machines advancing. Each order desk had at least one timestamp machine - used to stamp trading orders as they arrived at the trading desk and once they were filled and reported back to the back office.
These were the days before electronic trading. Customer order management was mostly a manual and hand-written process.
Orders came onto the trading floor mostly by phone. Some were delivered by teletype machines. An order clerk or broker, who answered the phone, timestamped the order when it was received on the trading floor. They would assign a runner (another clerk) to carry it to the pit. In some markets the order clerk would use hand signals to flash the order to another clerk or broker in the pit.
When the order was filled (either by receiving the completed order ticket from the pit, or when the pit clerk gave the hand signals that the trade was done), the clerk on the desk time stamped it again, picked up the phone and reported it to the client.
The other thing that stood out was just how cold the trading floor was. That’s because the air conditioning was on -- full blast — even in the middle of the winter.
At this time of day, the floor was mostly empty. Yet over the next 120 minutes, the space would fill with several thousand traders and clerks. Put that many bodies into a confined space and it adds a lot of BTUs. Then, ring a bell, which sets off a frenzy of yelling and jumping up and down in the pit and that adds even more heat. Throw in hundreds of clerks running around the floor and everyone is sweating. The AC starts working hard.
Less obvious, but also notable in the pre-dawn moment is that the phones are ringing. Some chirped. Many were just silent, with their lines flashing. Someone, somewhere wanted to connect with the market.
Despite all this, there was a peace. It would not last. As the opening bell’s time approached clerks and traders would drift onto the floor. The clicking would be overwhelmed with the buzz of conversation and eventual roar of the trading pits. The most evident sound from the timestamps would be their “THUNK!!” as an order was stamped. The AC would work harder as the room temperature rose and the phones would be picked up.
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Note to readers: This blog is about more than my experiences. It is intended to be a collective experience of working on the commodity markets physical trading floor. If you or someone you know has a story about working on the trading floor, please let me know. I’d like to include it in this ongoing chronicle. I can be reached at linton122@gmail.com
© 2021 Clifton Linton