Well, I guess I should remark a bit more on the closure of the futures trading pits now that I've had a chance to reflect upon things.
The news hasn't elicited much more than a "meh" response on my part for a couple reasons but mainly because the futures trading pits have been rendered almost irrelevant for a long time. Some pit traders continue to find niches which the floor can serve a purpose and the closure sucks for them but ultimately this announcement was going to come at some point. From a personal perspective, I last traded in the pit in 2005 as I was one of the early eurodollar traders to move entirely electronic from the pit (more on that is a followup post), so my perspective is certainly removed from the perspective of a floor trader in 2015. A few times a year I'll still go down to the floor to walk around but things are so different than the glory days that it no longer excites me. Perhaps this is a crude analogy but it's almost like visiting a hospice patient, alive but in terminal decline that is hard to see when remembering previous vitality. This space is oriented towards the history of what it was, not necessarily what it is now.
A funny encounter to relate the state of things I had late last year w/a couple amigos, one a former veteran pit trader who resumed his legal career after leaving trading and the other a long time options pit trader that at the time still went down to his options pit everyday. The ex-pit trader said, "I miss it" regarding the excitement of the trading floor and the current options trader said, "Ha, I miss it and I'm still there everyday."
One nice thing to come from the news is that there is a greater nostalgic appreciation for what an amazing environment the trading pits were, which is a big turn from how bitter a lot of people felt towards the trading pits previously. Hundreds of thousands of people either had direct or a single degree of separation from the pits and it's triggered a nice retrospective look into open outcry before the markets evolved electronically.
The various news stories on the closure were more a reflection of sloppy journalism and tired cliches than the trading pits but hopefully some interesting content emerges in the lead up to the actual closure. Of course the best stories of the trading pits will never be told and while there are a few that I can finally share after the futures pits close, the funniest and most outrageous won't make it to this blog.
As far as determining a certain date as to when pits will close, I would guess that it won't be a firm date right now according to how CME Group operates. The last controversial announcement they had was dismissing the prior CEO by stating he was leaving by yearend, then accelerated that time frame to months and ultimately it was later noted that he left a couple weeks prior via a regulatory filing. Thus, with how image conscious the CME Group is, anything can happen regarding the actual dates. I just want to be there for the closure of the famed wheat pit.
Regarding this space, the news has accelerated a few things that have been on my to-do list for a long time. The website's content management system (CMS), which was custom built in 2008, needs to be expanded and I'm looking at a couple other turnkey CMSs to shift to. A new CMS will really expand the scope of capturing this history in a big way and allow the website to be more visually driven. I have boxes of historical stuff which will be great to put on the internet but it's hard within the current CMS to make that happen so sometimes a fresh start is necessary. Trading, babysitting, hockey and beer take precedence to the CMS switch but I'm hoping w/a little motivation it'll happen within a month or so.
