1/16 was a tinnie, 1/4 was a quack, 1/2 was a laugh, 3/4 was the orders. The worst part of being on the floor was the smell when guys in your pit were eating things like burritos. A funny story is when this one lone market maker controlled a pit, he was big and basically crazy looking. One of the large firms sent a new guy into to his pit and he flipped out. He ended up pushing the new guy, and while most every new trader would have walked away or backed off, this kid went after him and head butted him. So the exchange (one of the smaller ones) yanks them off the floor and says they will be suspended for awhile and were going to be in a lot of trouble. The kid's firm was large enough that they sent a letter to the exchange and said the kid didn't start it and that their firm had a lot more money and lawyers than the exchange so they better reinstate him. They were both back on the floor the next day. Another one was in my first month on the floor the fire alarm went off. Well we have been trained since childhood to immediately exit the building when that happens so I start to leave. Then I look around and no one else is moving, so I ask someone else. He says that when he is busy trading he has no intention of leaving unless he see smoke or flames on our floor. That just goes to show you the mentality of floor traders. When they were filming Quicksilver on the floor, a trader I knew said he was busy trading and the film crew asked him to leave the pit for awhile so they could shoot a scene, he said no he was busy, so he ended up being in the film for a couple shots. It was fun back when things were singly listed. People used to believe that a stock would go up whenever there was a split announced so they would come in to buy Calls. The stock would sit there and people would buy Calls so we raised them, the stock wouldn't move or tick down and they kept buying so we kept raising them. Eventually, after making a ridiculous amount of money, the pros would start sending orders in so we would move the market just long enough to avoid filling them. Before they changed things, some traders used to set the markets in the last minute of the trading year so incredibly far off that they could shift most of their profits to the next year.
I remember hearing a story from years ago about a clerk from the CME who was paid like 10 grand to jump off of the Jackson St bridge into the river with a plunger placed up his ass. Apparently his scream could be heard up in Wisconsin when he hit the water. From what I heard there were traders lined up and down Jackson St by the river watching it and going crazy when he did it.
Whether 1/16th or 1/50000th, my point holds: He said he was getting slipped 3-4 cents in the 80s and stocks weren't even quoted on that basis back then! Perhaps next time, focus less on being pedantic and you won't make a pointless criticism.
OJ futures Not the orange juice kind. The wife stabbing kind. A couple of guys on the pcx started to make a mkt in the OJ verdict. They got so big, they left the floor, and started the WSE in Antigua.
Anyone remember "Bag of Bucks?" My first week on the foor (clerking) a guy walks into the pit with a duffle bag asking who was in. Four or five guys pulled out hundies and wrote their badge ID on them and dropped them in. I missed the drawing but when I hopped on the elevator the there was a dude there holding the bag (the winner). It was something like $18 grand.
Was a newer floor trader in futures about 11 years ago. I'd walked off the floor for a few minutes, and upon strolling back on, noticed the contract I had been trading was rallying. One of the bigger prick broker/paper fillers was offering, but without specifying his size. I was a 1-5 lot trader, and just yelled out, "Take 'em!" The fucker stuffed me with 250 contracts (that's right two-HUNDRED fifty)! Then the market immediately starts to break HARD! I couldn't sell anything so went and sold something close on two other exchanges. Then, of course, the market promptly reverses! This was within 15 minutes of the close, so price can do some wild things. I actually made money on my initial stupidity, but lost on my hedges. All in all a significant loss for a trader my size - something like 20% of my account in a matter of minutes, and a lesson in ALWAYS specifiying size when taking the offer!
Another favorite trick of the locals when trading was really slow was to trade one contract back and forth between people to move the price up or down a number of ticks, get prints on the board, and make it appear like the price was rising or falling. Often, after doing this, paper would come into the pit, and of course, the locals would take the other side, and whatever price move they'd engineered would promptly reverse. The people watching the quotes would call down to the floor pissed because as soon as their order was filled they'd be showing a loss. What they shuold've done was call the floor BEFORE placing their order to check and see what was going on. Having found out it was just the locals trading a one-lot, they could've avoided get caught like this.
Oh totally! I remember the nice girl who worked for ABS (Kalentis's brokerage group) who'd often run the drawing. The Merc was much more irreverent that the CBOT. There was also a top secret 10k per square Super Bowl. The IRS would have loved to hear about that one. A fellow Bond trader at the Board got in trouble and needed to sell his car. No dealer would take it because it was a grey market Benz without emission controls so he raffled it. I think he got 25k. Sure enough it was at the same time the FBI moles were on the floor and he narrowly avoided indictment for raffling the car for more than it's value and not paying Uncle Sam the taxes on the diff!