Tuesday, October 24, 2006
On the floor of the Exchange
On Saturday, September 30th, I observed a full dress rehearsal for the new Hybrid Trading system that is being phased in by the New York Stock Exchange. This is really a bridge between the old, fully hands-on system that has been in operation until now, and the likely eventual full automation, as happened in London in one fell swoop some years ago. To say that the test was less than a resounding success would be something of an understatement. But a lot of people are working very hard to rectify that.
My lasting impression will be of the floor, in action. Apparently, this was about half of the normal volume – and I can tell you, it was loud. Those guys stand for the entire trading day. They make split second decisions involving huge amounts of data that flashes on multiple screens and the ticker. It takes a certain type of person to handle that kind of stress. No wonder most are quite young. To give you an idea of the pace at which they work, we talk in terms of 8 milliseconds (0.008 of a second) as being an unacceptably slow response time.
For those of you who picture the floor as it is depicted in the movies; with lots of guys on a big floor, yelling and waving paper; it isn’t like that now. It is divided into several rooms, each of which has Specialist Stations - which look like a couple of imperfect circles that have been pushed together - in the centre of the floor. Surrounding them are the Trader areas. The Traders and Exchange ‘observers’ gather at the Specialist Stations. They talk, they shout, they key stuff into their handhelds. The assistants in the middle of these stations are also very busy. And with the amount of paper that ends up on the floor, it is amazing that there aren’t frequent injuries.
I left there very happy to have finally seen this organised madness and even happier to have spared myself the ulcers and headaches that these guys must endure. I realised that they are a bunch of regular men and women. The toilet is like that of a truck stop. They also swear like truckers. And I respect them more now than I ever did before.
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My lasting impression will be of the floor, in action. Apparently, this was about half of the normal volume – and I can tell you, it was loud. Those guys stand for the entire trading day. They make split second decisions involving huge amounts of data that flashes on multiple screens and the ticker. It takes a certain type of person to handle that kind of stress. No wonder most are quite young. To give you an idea of the pace at which they work, we talk in terms of 8 milliseconds (0.008 of a second) as being an unacceptably slow response time.
For those of you who picture the floor as it is depicted in the movies; with lots of guys on a big floor, yelling and waving paper; it isn’t like that now. It is divided into several rooms, each of which has Specialist Stations - which look like a couple of imperfect circles that have been pushed together - in the centre of the floor. Surrounding them are the Trader areas. The Traders and Exchange ‘observers’ gather at the Specialist Stations. They talk, they shout, they key stuff into their handhelds. The assistants in the middle of these stations are also very busy. And with the amount of paper that ends up on the floor, it is amazing that there aren’t frequent injuries.
I left there very happy to have finally seen this organised madness and even happier to have spared myself the ulcers and headaches that these guys must endure. I realised that they are a bunch of regular men and women. The toilet is like that of a truck stop. They also swear like truckers. And I respect them more now than I ever did before.
