saw this headline on dow jones news wires today - Nymex Might Eliminate Floor Trade 5 Yrs After Comex Deal- heck ... maybe in our lifetime ... all trading will be only done screen to screen and without human intervention will "prop" firms be able to compete or will the average "joe six pack" trader have a chance against these "BOTS "?
its so sad that there are no more pits left. Theres a certain beauty to them, after all that clicking on mouse and looking at ticks on a screen the trading pit reminds you of what your really doing, the age old practise of speculation. Theres an energy in the pits that u never experience when your trading on a screen: its the silence before the big move and the minute's pause when big news hits the market then a huge explosion of noise and commotion as trading volume hits a peak. I just feel sad that there will be a time where new traders will never know or experience what a physical trade actually feels like. I went to the SFE just before it became electronic, it was my first year of trading and i had lost a crapload. I went there to remind myself of what i was doing, in the end its just buying and selling but a simple concept like that is sometimes the hardest thing to understand.