TALES FROM THE PIT

摘要

The futures trading pits of Chicago and New York were unique places where prices were discovered in countless global commodities, currencies and financial instruments. The floor created efficiencies that truly improved the world. That may sound like hyperbole but it is not. Futures markets have changed all aspects of American life for more than a century and a half and until recently, trading was done in these dynamic trading pits. That technology has perhaps made them nearly obsolete does not lessen their significance in the world of finance. But they were also more than that. They were complex psychological environments where men, and eventually women, could test their mettle in the fiercest of competitive rings. There are few environments where the Darwinian principle played out in such a raw reality.