# End of an Era---CME to close most pit trading



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

It's a sad day for me--The CME is shutting down most open outcry pit trading.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/business/7/71/345887/cme-close-futures-trading-pits

I developed the first electronic order handling system, called, among other things Order Express, RANOrder, and a dozen other names including some that weren't so nice.

I started development in 1983 in partnership with Lind-Waldock, and went on to sell it under private labels to most brokerage firms including the like like of ADM, Cargill and Rosenthal-Collins.

It was the first system that integrated all aspects of order management in a truly real-time basis. It took in live quotes from all the exchanges, account data from the back office computer systems, orders from clerks and customers and routed them to the proper pit, then captured the executed trades from the exchange floors and sent the completed trade info back to the originator..

But its main feature was the ability to mark to the market all accounts and detect when a trader was about to get into trouble. It prevented more than one commodities trader from going bust. And kept them out of the brokerage firm's pockets.

I later integrated customer access over private networks, then as the Internet and web browsers were getting started, adapted it to full internet access.

The trading floors were like no other place on Earth. The energy, the excitement, the pressures were something that cannot be just described--they had to be experienced. A pit could be quite, then explode in a frenzy with breaking news. The exchange floors were a place were you got run over if you stood still!

Lots of money in work got lots of people's attention. People made fortunes in minutes...and lost them just as fast. The pressures to be accurate where tremendous--I saw one mistake made and corrected in 20 seconds that cost $250,000 when the market moved.

Now, I'm not so sure any more that electronic trading is a good idea.

For me, it's a sad day; the end of an era.

Ralph


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

Pop a top and have a toast. It's 12 o'clock somewhere.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

That is sad Ralph. It's like the day the South St Paul Stockyards closed. Bummed me out terribly. Four generations of my family sold cattle there, now it's a fricking parking ramp. Still have the paper "commemorating" the closure.

Sadly, the paper is dated on my birthday...


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