I transferred this documentary onto youtube from a DVD the Kansas City Board of Trade offered after it was produced in 2006. The documentary was produced as part of what appears to be a PBS affiliated series called Voices of Vision, showing both the speculative and producer perspectives on the hard red winter wheat contract which was traded in the pits at the KCBT.
In 1998, I got my first look at a trading pit from the visitors gallery at the KCBT and instantly knew that it was all I ever wanted to do in life. Shortly after that first look at 18, I got a job as a pit reporter and blew off my plans to go to university a couple months later. As you can understand with the profiles and interviews, it was a very inviting atmosphere for a young guy to be introduced to the futures industry. A lot of great memories come back whenever I see pictures or videos of the KCBT floor!
I might as well repost the video of the final trading bell I took as well there.
I finally got around to converting this sixteen minute 1993 CBOT promotional video from cassette, about futures markets and the trading floor. In particular, I think this video is great with how it leads with the professional perspective of a top step bean local, who has none of the amateurish bravado, but shares his perspective of how serious things are for a local and how a career can be ended in a single day.
1865 Inaugural Banquet of CBOT building reception program, shared from my personal collection
As anyone who has been a part of the trading floor environment knows, there ain’t no party like a Chicago trader party, and that’s rang true going back to the origins of trading in the city. The CBOT and it’s members were quite flush just months after the end of the Civil War, and offered this luxurious banquet to open up the new 1865 building, their first permanent home within the Chamber of Commerce building.
I love any Chicago collectibles preceding the 1871 Chicago fire, but especially CBOT items as they’re pretty rare. In a prior post, I touched upon the fire as it related to the CBOT, burnt down the above building, and shared a members ticket in my collection from that year. Although I have other opening items for the subsequent CBOT buildings, the only similar item I’ve seen to commemorate the opening of a preceding CBOT building is either at the Chicago History Museum or the Chicago Public Library, can’t recall where I saw it.
It’s been a long while since I’ve been back on here to pontificate and curate, largely because I’ve been so busy, I barely have time to wipe my ass. This trading lull ahead of the election and wanting to clear a lot of stuff that’s been backed up ahead of an upcoming project, is giving enough of a push to post up some stuff I’ve had around….
Course of the Exchange, December 31 ,1708 edition from my personal collection
Update: One interesting thing after this post was published was that there were many references to 2020 representing the “UK’s worst recession in 300 years.” The December 1708 editions of Course of the Exchange I have, lead into that period of the Great Frost of 1709, which was the coldest European Winter of the last 500 years according to Wikipedia. Makes it even more remarkable to have these in my collection!
Beginning in 1698, Huguenot stockbroker John Castaing began publication of Course of the Exchange, and other Things, from Jonathan’s Coffee House on Exchange Alley in the City of London. Jonathan’s is largely regarded as the precursor to what became the London Stock Exchange as it, and other nearby coffeehouses, were a centralized gathering place for brokers and speculators to transact or share information. An excellent background article on the London coffeehouses of the 17th and 18th century is: The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse by Dr. Matthew Green. Also, this sample chapter in PDF form from The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble is also recommended background reading.
Plaque marking where Jonathan’s Coffee House once stood on Change Alley in the City of London, personal photo
Castaing’s Course of the Exchange was not the first financial list published, but it was quickly taken to be the authoritative source on pricing due to it’s accuracy and consistency. Since it’s founding in 1698, Course was published twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays as those were the days that foreign mail was dispatched from London. As a result, Course is the also notable to have been the first English business paper to be published more than once a week. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Castaing created the world’s first reliable financial data provider and the increased frequency of publication was the first step in latency reduction which now measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second).
Four sheets of Course of the Exchange from my personal collection, 1708, 1776, 1777 and 1803
Even after Castaing’s passing in 1707, the format of Course remained very consistent by listing price information with the same format on one side of a single sheet. As the sheet was printed bi weekly, the edition number for that year is listed at the top of each page. There isn’t much broadly written on what Castaing created but one blogger noted that his ties to the Huguenot community was instrumental to the accuracy and following among the London business community.
I have an extensive collection of trading floor memorabilia of all types, but these pieces are some of my favorites across my collection. If anyone is aware of other pieces in a personal collection, please email me. From my research the largest original collection is at Guildhall Library in London (also the site of LIFFE trader statue, atleast on my last visit), followed by the Bodleian Library Oxford, British Library, a handful of single pieces at a few American Universities and of course these at Chez Carlson. With my December 1708 batch, which I obtained from one of the most prolific financial history collectors, I still am a bit in awe to have something that was created when Benjamin Franklin was a toddler (the only American reference point I could think of to show how old it is!). I also think it’s really interesting to look over the price changes, or lack there of, from the 1776 and 1777 sheets during the American Revolutionary War. Clearly the 1776 and 1777 sheets were posted on a nail, also a nice touch I like for the utilitarian use.
Photo I took on last visit to Tate Modern of 1847 Edward Matthew Ward painting, The South Sea Bubble, a Scene in ‘Change Alley in 1720
It’s hard to imagine the early 1700s when stocks were traded in coffeeshops although an excellent illustration of early share trading, particularly during the South Sea Company bubble of 300 years ago, is on display at Tate Modern Museum in London. Edward Matthew Ward’s 1847 painting, The South Sea Bubble, a Scene in ‘Change Alley in 1720, depicts the mania and street scene on Change Alley outside of Garraway’s Coffee House, where Castaing published Course of the Exchange after moving on from Jonathan’s Coffee House originally. There’s a lot of interesting details to the painting so I suggest viewing it in person next opportunity in London. There is no direct reference to Course of the Exchange in the painting but I’ll share some photos of some details that I found interesting in it below.
Writing on the torn paper has the words “hemp” “and flax” “capital” “million” “100”
The note on the door states, “The business of the owner is suspended from unavoidable circumstances.” Clearly the gentlemen on the left are surprised at that while the man consoled by a woman is having reality sink in of losses. There is also a chalk hangman drawn on the door.
Centered in the scene are some new speculators who are eagerly looking to get aboard a new issue. The pamplhet that is being read only has the legible words “Perpetual Motion – Capital One Million.”
The shrewdest looking person is the gentleman at the table who looks like he’s awaiting on other’s decisions to close a deal. To have a table setup in that scene makes it clear that he is The Man and also surrounded by others who know what they’re doing. The shady people behind him made me immediately think of some MFers in the eurodollar pit.
I’m not sure exactly what’s going on in this section but the couple in the lower left appear tapped out and likely tore up the paper certificate in front of them. Behind is a pawnbroker that likely provided liquidity for share purchases and a woman appears to either pawning some jewelry or getting some mystical advice.
Beneath the man at the table is a basket full of paper clippings, none appear specifically to be Course of the Exchange but would’ve likely have been if truly accurate.
Just a quick post as it’s been a while, the above photo is my collection of LIFFE badges that were distributed on the floor to commemorate a product launch or benchmark attained. There are probably a dozen badges that I know I don’t have but they’re for minor products generally and this is certainly one of the more, if not the most complete, collection out there. If you happen to have any which aren’t shown, please email me (tradingpithistory ‘at’ gmail.com) as I’d love to expand this collection.
In the US we refer to these as pinback buttons but apparently in the UK they’re called badges. Of the ones shown, the most notable are side by side in the middle right, the Bund futures launch and the FT-SE 100 futures. My favorite just for appearance is probably the mosaic pattered BTP futures launch badge from 1991. Any mention of that contract reminds me of a comment a friend once made of it that LIFFE’s BTP pit was more corrupt than Sicily.
My collection of CME and CBOT buttons was expanded quite a bit since I last took a photo of them and at some point I’ll have to do another photo. Next up, hopefully later this week, is another post I’ll have to do that’s also London related, regarding one of my most favorite and historic items in my collection of trading floor stuff.
The bag of bucks was something that really epitomized the trading floor as it was the type of thing that could only be thought up there. I can only speak to my observation of it a couple times on the CME floor in the equity index quadrant, as a clerk around the S&P pit in 1999 and 2000, but have to imagine it occurred also at the CBOT and elsewhere more frequently at the CME before I got there.
Like anything with the trading floor, it’s concept was very simple. The person running it would walk around the trading floor and announce that they were starting a bag of bucks later on and specify some additional details like if it was for $20 bills or $100 bills and if a single bag for everyone or if there’d be a second bag that was for clerks only. In those days, clearing firms had a fair amount of cash on hand which could be withdrawn from a trading account so the sums could escalate easily to five figures. To participate, all it took was to write your name or badge on the bills and drop them into the bag, unlimited. Once the collection was complete, the bag would be shaken a bit to mix it up then someone would get the honor of pulling a single bill from the bag and whoever’s name/badge was on that bill won the entire bag of bucks. Tipping out a cut to the person who organized it was the only vig.
Although the bag of bucks encapsulated the spirit of the trading floor, it also juxtaposed the function of the trading pits. Since the bag of bucks was a closed activity funded only by participants on the trading floor, it was essentially shuffling money around in a lottery style, zero sum game. The trading pits required outside order flow to trade against and as I’ve written before, locals wanted to trade with brokers filling outside orders rather than profit off other locals. Another thing was for all the billions in notional value that exchanged in the trading pits, none was done in tangible cash. Good traders always had an edge to base decisions on and the bag of bucks was a pure gamble, albeit a simple one for entertainment more than anything. It also wasn’t necessarily verboten to speak in terms of dollar amounts but rather than talk dollars, traders generally speak in terms of “ticks” when discussing money on the floor.
Obviously, the CME couldn’t condone the bag of bucks so it had to be done a little quietly. There were other activities like Super Bowl square pools or making markets in sports events which can be found in any workplace but the bag of bucks was unique to the trading floor. Before my time at the Merc, I also heard that when an adjacent street was closed, some fat guys from the floor were organized to race each other. Betting on fat guys racing is also something I can’t imagine happening anywhere other than at the Chicago Merc.
Opening day of eurodollar futures trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on December 9, 1981
The eurodollar futures contract is over 37 years old and having traded it for about half it’s (and my own) lifetime thus far, I was quite pleased to obtain this roll of film which documented the opening trading day of the contract at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on December 9, 1981. There’s an issue embedding the file so click this link HERE to see the entire film roll of photos which will open up the uploaded 41MB pdf file.
When the LIBOR based contract was launched, the interest rate was over 13% which is pretty much unthinkable now considering the current environment of zero or negative rates across the globe. Not only is the volatility unimaginable with 13% interest rates but I can only think that the bid ask spreads were wide enough to drive a truck through in that trading era. Meanwhile as I write this, the size in front month eurodollars is 70k x 100k (including a single order of 30k on the offer). Another stat I can throw out there is according to my historical data, eurodollars had about 3.5 million open interest when I started as a clerk for some local traders there in 2000 and that ballooned to over 17 million a year ago but is down to about 12.5 million currently.
This FRED chart shows the LIBOR rate going back to the 1970s and illustrates the downward trend in rates since the day pictured, with a lot of credit due to the eurodollar contract and other financial futures, which presented hedging opportunities and reduced uncertainty to the capital markets.
One of the things I found funny was that when I went into the eurodollar pit as a 22 year old to trade, there were a lot of old guys who are pictured in some of these photos as young guys. A small amount of people are also pictured wearing the pinback button which was given out to commemorate the contract launch. Pictured below is one that I have in my collection:
Eurodollar futures contract launch button on December 9, 1981 from Chicago Mercantile Exchange
