know if the low was raised on the SP500 DEC Contract from 856.80 or .90 to 857 on the floor of the CME today and if so Did your squawk box take note of this? just curious ... as my data feed seems to have 856.80 as low and cme time and sales shows 2 prints at 56.80 + .90 but cme also shows low of day as 857.
Seth, if I were a local today, ET is not where I would be at nite. I was a local in the spoo pit in the late 80's. And when we quit, that was it for the day. Other guys, listening to the broadcaster is easy if you have an idea what he is saying first. Then, like lip reading, you can figure it out very quickly. Hopefully this will help: Let's say the price is 861.90 bid/ ask or at 862.00 In the loud chicagoland voice the broadcaster will say "861.90 bid, at 862 even. Then he will continue with 90 bid at even, 90 bid at even, 861.90 bid at 862 even, now at 10, 862 even bid at 10, even bid at 10 even bid at 10, locals chop, even bid at 10, even bid at...{pit noise increases} now 20, at 20, 10 bid at 20, 10 bid at 20, 862.10 bid at 20, Refco's buying, {pit gets loud} now Merrill, Merrill's got a 50 lot, 10 bid at 20, 10 bid at 20, now at 30, Merrill still buying, 862.20 bid at 30, 20 bid at 30, Solly's selling a 20 lot, 20 bid at 30 , 20 bid at 30, Lewis is in, Lewis is selling, 10bid at 20, now even, even bid, 862 even, now 90, 861.90 at even, now at 90, now at 80, 861.70 bid at 80.... man that gives me goose bumps just typing it and reading it. Read it faster and faster, hear the voice in your head. Fifty is "a half" ie., 40 bid at a half. 40 at a half, now 30, 30 bid at 40, now at a half, 30 at a half now 40 bid, 40 at a half You read this a few times and listen tomorrow and you will have a great time.
Barry haigh ( spelling ) "west of wall street" and owen morrissy and glen lakin ( spelling ) I think these last two were locals from nyc metals pits who moved to chitown in 80's or 90's to trade spoos ever hear of these guys ? wonder if they are retired by now or if the pit retired them
Seth I knew all three at the time I was there. Not very well, just enough to say "how ya doin." I really liked glen, pretty cool guy. Again, I didn't know them well. I think his badge was LAK wasn't it? Ah, doesn't matter. Didn't know owen at all, maybe not even who I am thinking of. I don't know about owen and glen but barry was unceremoniously retired after I left.... got into a little trouble. I think it was after. I remember he used to stand facing the gallery with his two employee members next to him, some guy and a broad. They never traded, just made fun of people in the pit. The chubby guy was a real "jagoff", if you know what I mean. The old days...
Ben L. is great...but the fact is more often than not ES has already moved by the time the quote gets out of Ben's mouth. the only value I find now in the squawk is to listen for crowd activity and dealers coming in with size.
Several years ago I used one of the first Squawk Services for the S&P and found them to be way ahead of real-time quotes that were coming from my Bloomberg feed. It can be most helpful, but sometimes can also be rather annoying after a long session. The real advantage that I saw was the commentators "tone", and the faster speed of receiving "real-time" quotes.
One advantage is that you can move around your room or maybe make a sandwich without missing anything.
Hi, everybody... A while back, I created a DeskTop item for MarketSound from the CME. Basically, it's the same interface as you'd see when you go to the CME's MarketSound web page, but it's embedded into your desktop, so you don't need to open a browser. Of course, you need Active Desktop enabled, and if you're using ZoneAlarm, you need to set it up properly (add the IP for the MarketSound server to the Trusted list). There is one bug with it...it conflicts with CPUIdle, a program that throttles back your CPU when it's idle, to make it run cooler and last longer. Causes an irretrievable system lock-up, but only when you have the voice enabled on the MarketSound DeskTop item. So, you have to disable CPUIdle before enabling the MarketSound voice. (Basically, you click the CPUIdle icon in the System Tray, click 'Disable', then start the MarketSound voice.) But, it appears to be more stable than running it from the CME website. I provided the MarketSound DeskTop item to the CME guys who run MarketSound, so if you want it, you might contact them to see if they're willing to release it. I can't release it, it's not my code, it's theirs. But, I can tell you, it's a pretty nifty little thing, so if enough people express interest in it, maybe the CME will release it for general public use. I'm sure that when they go subscription-based with MarketSound (it's free right now) they can easily alter the DeskTop item code to lock out unauthorized users, probably via some sort of cookie/password scheme.