Every story about financial markets needs a reference to Trading Places. Years ago I worked at Bloomberg, whose offices are of course modeled on the trading floors to whose traders Bloomberg sells its terminals. It takes a very certain kind of person to thrive in a trading floor environment, or even one, such as at Bloomberg, which tries to replicate that environment. Suffice it to say, it's not for me but clearly there are a lot of people who do thrive in these environments.
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, we can have all the special effects and so forth but I sort of miss the storytelling on Hollywood 70s/early 80s. Was a golden age.
At Deutsche I frequently had clients keen to see the trading floor, so I'd show them around. They usually left disappointed about the lack of "action". That was 20 years ago, I think there was still this image of the trading pit in the collective mind.
Yeah in the late 90s it was still busy as electronic trading was still early but am sure DB on a payrolls number day or in 2008 would have been a bit colourful? I noticed when I went to ICAP that it was more lively that Credit Suisse as former was brokers
You are bringing me down memory lane, so I will tell you where it was “colourful”, i.e. testosterone-fuelled, wild, and (seen from 2025) totally non compliant: the FX trading floor of XXXX (redacted but its on my Linkedin) in Singapore, before DB
I was intern in research at UBS in 2009, I remember going to the trading floor in Stamford. It was emitting so much heat, that was insane, it did not need heating in the winter. You thought that was the peak of finance world. And a few years later it was g-o-n-e...
Cool. I had the pleasure of seeing some of the big NYC trading floors pre-crisis (my profile picture was taken on one at Lehman in NYC). I have had the opportunity to sit on the trading desk in my career as well and although it is is much quieter and smaller these days, there is still the same camaraderie which is nice.
Every story about financial markets needs a reference to Trading Places. Years ago I worked at Bloomberg, whose offices are of course modeled on the trading floors to whose traders Bloomberg sells its terminals. It takes a very certain kind of person to thrive in a trading floor environment, or even one, such as at Bloomberg, which tries to replicate that environment. Suffice it to say, it's not for me but clearly there are a lot of people who do thrive in these environments.
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, we can have all the special effects and so forth but I sort of miss the storytelling on Hollywood 70s/early 80s. Was a golden age.
Excellent metaphor for hubris mate 👌
👏👏👏
At Deutsche I frequently had clients keen to see the trading floor, so I'd show them around. They usually left disappointed about the lack of "action". That was 20 years ago, I think there was still this image of the trading pit in the collective mind.
Yeah in the late 90s it was still busy as electronic trading was still early but am sure DB on a payrolls number day or in 2008 would have been a bit colourful? I noticed when I went to ICAP that it was more lively that Credit Suisse as former was brokers
You are bringing me down memory lane, so I will tell you where it was “colourful”, i.e. testosterone-fuelled, wild, and (seen from 2025) totally non compliant: the FX trading floor of XXXX (redacted but its on my Linkedin) in Singapore, before DB
Ah Dwarf throwing Wolf of Wall Street style!
not that. But I won't be sharing anything specific.
I was intern in research at UBS in 2009, I remember going to the trading floor in Stamford. It was emitting so much heat, that was insane, it did not need heating in the winter. You thought that was the peak of finance world. And a few years later it was g-o-n-e...
Cool. I had the pleasure of seeing some of the big NYC trading floors pre-crisis (my profile picture was taken on one at Lehman in NYC). I have had the opportunity to sit on the trading desk in my career as well and although it is is much quieter and smaller these days, there is still the same camaraderie which is nice.
Thanks for sharing. Interesting