Trading Pit Blog: January 2010

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Floored the movie

I've been in Singapore during the run that Floored had in a Chicago theatre and am looking forward to finally viewing it. To be honest, I don't think that the characters I've seen are well representative of the trading community (atleast people I know) but final judgment ought to be served until after I get to view it. From what I've seen in the trailer, it does a good job concerning the difficult transition that many had from the trading pit to the screen and it brings to mind a quote that I read in Ken Dryden's The Game:

“More often than I like, I am saddened by a historical myth….. I can’t help thinking of the Venetian Republic in their last half century. Like us, they had once been fabulously lucky. They had become rich, as we did, by accident…..They knew, just as clearly as we know, that the current of history had begun to flaw against them. Many of them gave their minds to working out ways to keep going. It would have meant breaking the pattern into which they had crystallized. They were fond of the pattern, just as we are fond of ours. They never found the will to break it.” – C.P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Charlie D. book

The book Charlie D. by William Falloon was the first time I heard mention of Charlie DiFrancesca but even when I arrived to the CBOT in the late 90s, people still spoke of Charlie D. in very high regard. The transcript of the video below is largely in the book under the chapter "God doesn't trade bonds" and I highly recommend the book.

Charlie D. video

This is the greatest example on how to pit trade (with implications for modern day trading) and was given by Charlie DiFrancesca ("Charlie D") in March 1989. tradingpithistory.com has uncovered one of two likely existing copies of the video and uploaded it on youtube in 12 parts linked below:

Handsignal print in development

As promised some new works are in the pipeline and tradingpithistory.com is proud to have partnered with the very talented Chicago based artist Mike Nudelman to create a highquality wall print of trading pit handsignals. Layout is currently being finalized but approximately 30 signals (quantities, months, options) will be displayed on the print which will look great on a home or office wall. A couple examples are shown below and the final product will be available for sale in about a month. And if anyone thinks I'm doing this to make money, that's not the point or goal. For those who are interested in obtaining a print, register your interest with an email to: tradingpithistory 'at' gmail.com