A Former Blackhawk Braves Chicago's Pits

A Former Blackhawk Braves Chicago's Pits

One of the most interesting things about the trading floor was the varied backgrounds of all the traders. In honor of the Blackhawks playoff run, the above title is linked to a 1997 Chicago Tribune article on former Blackhawk player Troy Murray and his entrance into the S&P 500 pit at the CME. His badge was CUP, because he won the Stanley Cup with Colorado in 1996.

Trading jackets

Every segment of the trading floor community was affected by the move to electronic trading and that includes vendors such as trading jacket manufacturer PECO who reinvented their company from focusing on custom trading jackets to a create custom chef wear line entitled Culinary Classics. Very inspiration news story below of how the reinvention happened and nice to see they were able to just as many traders have in other manners.

One note is that at 0:34 in the video you'll notice that some clerks have their jacket pulled over their nose which is one way to help mask the smell of someone's fart. You really had to spend a lot of time on the floor to understand how frequent that occurred.

Poll results

Well I didn't get much feedback (thanks to those that did) so I'll just resume posting at my regular apathetic pace.

Poll

I'll be traveling and as Blogger is blocked by the destination country's firewall, there won't be any posting for the next few weeks. Having had this blog up for about 18 months, I figure now is a good time to ask for feedback as to what all the readers are looking for. Some examples:
-books on exchanges (cause I've got all those)
-books on pit traders (cause I've got all those as well)
-pictures of the trading pit (cause I've got hundreds of those)
-more memorabilia (cause I've got that)
-videos (hard to find but I can)
-personal stories of funny stuff I saw on various trading floors
-art (or which more is being made)

This blog is generally for me to share but it's always nice to get requests and of the handful I've corresponded with, it's always been rewarding so either leave a comment below (anonymously if you wish, no registration is required) or email me: tradingpithistory 'at' gmail.com

The only thing I don't want this to be is a "how to trade" blog because there are millions of those on the web, albeit that 99.9% are run by shills. I know how annoying it is for blogs not too update frequently and I'm guilty of that and want to do more. Trading has kept me busy but a number of great things will continue to roll out shortly, namely the Chicago handsignal print, SIMEX handsignals photos, and more postings on books/photos if requested. Eventually this blog will merge onto tradingpithistory.com but there are some projects to finish before that.