The End Of An Era

Seems like everything continues to run in circles, so watch your six and don’t get over exposed. This is not the tape to be trifled with. On the equities side the roller coaster is now heading higher again, which actually may be positive in terms of being able to find exposure near our inflection points. But thus far we remain stuck inside the murky depth of the ES limbo range.

The only setup I would consider this morning is cocoa futures – it’s slowly easing its way higher and I would risk 1/2R on a close above the NLBL at 2,751. Now speaking of the futures…

It is with a heavy heart that I must share the ending of an era: The CME group has decided to close most of its futures pits. Clearly open outcry has been on the wane for decades and according to the CME now accounts for only 1% of total futures trading volume. So it’s understandable that they’re closing it down. But call me old fashioned – it’s still sad to see it go. And during outages pit trading has served as a backup, so I hope this won’t come back to bite them where it hurts the most. Because once it’s gone for a few years it would be difficult to reinstate.

Trading on the floor requires not only brass balls, stress tolerance, and a carbon fiber enforced voice box but a range of skills that’s becoming more and more rare these days. If you think electronic trading is tough then try to fill orders on paper slips and execute binding executions on only verbal confirmation or hand gestures. That brave new world we are building may be faster and more complex, but I also think it’ll be a lot more boring. Alright, I’m officially old…

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Cheers,