It’s been a while since there’s been some MATIF content on this website, so here’s a few videos from the the early 1990s of the trading floor in Paris that I hadn’t posted up previously ..read more

1980s vintage trader print tshirt With Halloween coming up, it’s time to bust out this vintage 1980’s trader print shirt and dress as the scariest thing seen in 2022, the bond vigilante.  Accessorizing it with my Resistol hat and holstered Beretta would really complete the look. James Carville famously said in the 90s: “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” This is on track to be the worst year for the 10 year Tr ..read more

S&P 500 futures launch button from first day of trading in 1982 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Also shown are buttons given out to promote more traders to spend 15 minutes trying to trade the contract, buttons promoting the launch of options on the S&P contract and the button from the first day of trading the E-mini S&P 500 contract The standard sized S&P 500 futures contract will be delisted on Friday, September 17, 2021 and it will close an era for that specific contract which was first listed in 1982.  Liquidity has long transitioned over to the E-mini S&P co ..read more

This wonderful documentary from ITV was uploaded to youtube earlier in the year and is now making the rounds after I saw it uploaded to the LIFFE floor facebook page.  The tv documentary runs 27 minutes and was released in 1986.  In particular, the mix of raw floor footage and interviews with a few of those who worked on the LIFFE floor at the time, really makes it worth while to watch and get a feel for the trading floor environment ..read more

Trading floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange photographed by Andreas Gursky, photo credit publicdelivery.org Once again, it’s been a while between posts as I had to have a friend sort out some technical issues with the website hosting, been busy with trading, living life and also working on another creative project I’ll elaborate more about later on. All the talk about social distancing or even canceling the Olympics in Tokyo makes me long for some Japanese open outcry trading and in a deep dive on the subject, I actually found that the Japanese exchanges had a long history of using trading flo ..read more

Stock market bucketshop trading ticket from 1901 I don’t write much about the equities markets, mainly because I don’t participate in them and have a lack of interest. The recent squeeze in GME and other stocks did remind me of the above relic from my collection of the famous Panic of 1901. The trading ticket is from the St. Louis branch of the Central Stock & Grain Exchange of Chicago, which was a famous bucketshop of it’s day, and it represents a lot of similarities of the recent frenzy in stock trading. A lot of speculative manias come down to what I regard simply as distribution of acc ..read more

I transferred this documentary onto youtube from a DVD the Kansas City Board of Trade offered after it was produced in 2006. The documentary was produced as part of what appears to be a PBS affiliated series called Voices of Vision, showing both the speculative and producer perspectives on the hard red winter wheat contract which was traded in the pits at the KCBT. In 1998, I got my first look at a trading pit from the visitors gallery at the KCBT and instantly knew that it was all I ever wanted to do in life. Shortly after that first look at 18, I got a job as a pit reporter and blew off my ..read more

I finally got around to converting this sixteen minute 1993 CBOT promotional video from cassette, about futures markets and the trading floor. In particular, I think this video is great with how it leads with the professional perspective of a top step bean local, who has none of the amateurish bravado, but shares his perspective of how serious things are for a local and how a career can be ended in a single day ..read more

1865 Inaugural Banquet of CBOT building reception program, shared from my personal collection As anyone who has been a part of the trading floor environment knows, there ain’t no party like a Chicago trader party, and that’s rang true going back to the origins of trading in the city. The CBOT and it’s members were quite flush just months after the end of the Civil War, and offered this luxurious banquet to open up the new 1865 building, their first permanent home within the Chamber of Commerce building. I love any Chicago collectibles preceding the 1871 Chicago fire, but especially CBOT items ..read more

It’s been a long while since I’ve been back on here to pontificate and curate, largely because I’ve been so busy, I barely have time to wipe my ass. This trading lull ahead of the election and wanting to clear a lot of stuff that’s been backed up ahead of an upcoming project, is giving enough of a push to post up some stuff I’ve had around…. Course of the Exchange, December 31 ,1708 edition from my personal collection Beginning in 1698, Huguenot stockbroker John Castaing began publication of Course of the Exchange, and other Things, from Jonathan’s Coffee House on Change Alley in the City of L ..read more