Prop shops' pivotal role With computers leading an exodus of bodies from exchange floors, highly-secretive prop shops are setting much of the agenda in Chicago's markets. Scattered across the city are more than 30 firms which trade untold billion in options and futures with their own, proprietary funds. By Joshua Boak Chuck Whitman runs an open-outcry trading pit. But unlike the floor at the Chicago Board of Trade, it exists only for training rookies at his firm. The real action breaks quickly across hundreds of computer screens, which fill a private trading floor the size of nine basketball courts, where his team invests the firm's money in derivatives ranging from U.S. Treasury bonds to crude oil. "I liked the idea of seeing all the markets at one time," Whitman said during a tour of Infinium Capital Management's month-old home. "And secondly, I could see the end of open-outcry coming." http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-wed-prop-shops-trading-apr16,0,6487314.story