When the Chicago Board of Trade opened its new financial floor in 1998 it actual size was remarkable but it was also criticized by many as folly—for the writing was already on the wall for the future of open outcry—and it was labeled the Arboretum for the man (CBOT Chairman Pat Arbor) most responsible for having it built.
Today it may be known as the last bastion for open outcry trading. CME Group is working feverishly to splice up this enormous space to encompass all of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange products along with the CBOT financial products. Some products will not make the move (Frozen Pork Bellies for one) but there is safety in numbers and the merging of the products of these two great exchanges onto one trading floor will probably prolong the life of open outcry in Chicago. See floor plan. Download file
On Sept. 4, CME Group revealed some of that plan distributing a floor plan and a migration timeline to traders and clerks on the floor. See plan. Download file
Comments (1)
The demise of the trading floor at CBOT (where I served proudly as outside counsel for a generation) in favor of electronic trading was the subject of my article "Food Court" (conjecturing on the future use of the space) that appeared in Futures & Derivatives Law Report, Risk magazine and Derivatives Quarterly in early 1997!
At least we knew where to tell the bus to stop. Today, the cyber-markets make it difficult to know what country they belong to.
Posted by Philip McBride Johnson | September 28, 2007 11:44 AM
Posted on September 28, 2007 11:44