It's the Pits

It was the Gap trade with a difference - we watched it in the S and P pit on the floor of the Board of Trade, where the CME moved the pit after its merger.


Thank you Ben Lichtenstein for taking us onto the floor and showing the EL training group around. Thanks also to Trevor from MarketDelta for arranging it.


We stood in Ben's booth while he squawked the S and P bigs. Ben owns Traders Audio and provides a tick by tick squawk of the action. Lots of traders find it useful to know whether it's paper or locals who are running the action, and which way they are.


I hadn't been down on the floor since 2001 and was amazed at how few people were there now compared to then. The floor is a dinosaur.


The market opened Gap down. It was great seeing the Gap trade live in the pit, not just numbers. Paper came into the pit and the locals took it. After some to-ing and fro-ing for half an hour, price moved well towards the gap. Price was 76.00 just before the 10 am number and the locals got long into the number, hoping for a pop. POP it did and we immediately saw 78.00 as we were walking off the floor.


Candace was on a floor for the first time and I'm glad she got to see it before it disappears.