I remember fondly the days of the Bond Pit in Chicago.
Here's a story about a documentary film made about the pit.
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By Tony C. Dreibus
Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Doug Pringle saw punches thrown, blood spilled and fortunes lost during his 17-year career at the Chicago Board of Trade. He misses it, every day.
"The biting of the nose and the fights, sure, when you're throwing around that kind of money, people tend to lose it sometimes," said Pringle, 42, who traded corn, soybeans, 10- year Treasury notes and 30-year bonds. "I miss the excitement."
Chicago's open-outcry nostalgists can now watch their slow- motion obituary on film. "Floored," a documentary that premieres in the city tonight, captures the fading swagger of its exchange pits as electronic trading takes over.
Traders and former traders in the film recount drug-fueled road trips with prostitutes, living in mansions, and a crash that included divorce and having to take a $400-a-week job.
The numbers in Chicago's pits peaked in 1997, with about 10,000 traders flailing their arms with buy and sell signals in a daily scrum of sweating and shouting, said Steve Prosniewski, a trader who's one of the film's producers. Less than 10 percent of those remain, he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=avhLUj0FlZAw&pos=15
* * * * * J B K * * * * *
San Francisco
James B. Klein
www.paterson.com
paterson-financial-services.blogspot.com
