Handsignals of the Chicago Trading Pits print

It's finished! Below I present the final version of the Handsignals of the Chicago Trading Pits print which was designed by the very talented Chicago based illustrator Mike Nudelman and printed by Chicago based print guru Dan Grzeca.

Click on the photo for a larger, higher resolution image of it:



This is the first and only piece of trading pit art of it's kind and based upon handsignals used on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Over the next months we will complete similar prints of the handsignals used in the trading pits of New York, London and Singapore.

Pricing is expected to be $250 per print and the intended use of the proceeds after covering costs for the high quality talent who created the print will be to further develop the trading pit history project in various ways.

Details on how to pick one up will be coming shortly but the print run was limited to 500.

The Scalper

Although this doesn't exactly pertain to the trading pit, I couldn't help but post this early 20th century booklet on "The Scalper: Who he is, what he does and how he does it" mainly cause I thought the drawing was great. It was put out by a brokerage to help off floor traders learn about how to scalp and basically get customers to trade through that brokerage. One thing that hasn't changed in the 150+ years in the futures industry is all the scumbag brokers looking for new and ignorant clients to rip off. At least the early versions of marketing spam such as this were a bit more original than modern day shills put out.

SIMEX handsignals signals

Was hanging w/the guys at Rabbitwerks in San Francisco and we were able to shoot photos of the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX) hand signals. It'll take a few weeks for us to edit and match text (got some other projects taking precedent) to each handsignal but they are very, very comprehensive that I learned from a longtime SIMEX trader during my trip to Singapore earlier in the year.

There are old traders and bold traders....

A 'saying' that I often heard was that "there are old traders and there are bold traders but there are no old, bold traders." It took years to fully understand it and in general it's true except for very rare exceptions. I thought of this recently when I was rereading articles on the original King of the Wheat Pit, Benjamin Hutchinson who was commonly referred to as "Old Hutch" on the trading floor in the late 1800s. Perhaps the greatest pit trading book, The Pit by Frank Norris was largely based upon "Old Hutch." For a read on a much different era, I submit the following New York Times articles from that era, all linked in pdf files:

THE GREAT SPECULATOR FAILS.; MR. HUTCHINSON LEAVES CHICAGO AND HIS TRADES CLOSED OUT.
April 30, 1891, Wednesday

HAVE NOT FOUND "OLD HUTCH."; EXCITEMENT OVER HIS DISAPPEARANCE SUBSIDED ON THE BOARD.
May 1, 1891, Wednesday


"OLD HUTCH" HAS HAD HIS DAY; THE FAMOUS GRAIN SPECULATOR COMPLETELY RUINED.
August 28, 1893, Wednesday


B.P. HUTCHINSON DEAD.; Passed Away at Lake Geneva, Wis. -- Once Leading Grain Speculator in This Country.
March 17, 1899, Wednesday

and somewhat related, an article which ties some of the grain corner stories together:

Battle of Giants for Wheat Supremacy.; " Big Jim" Patten, the Latest Figure in Grain Speculation, and the Men Who Oppose Him.
October 27, 1907, Sunday

Barings Bank SIMEX trading jackets

I always felt there were two great mysteries of trading pit memorabilia and now experience tremendous relief at uncovering both, first there was the excellent Charlie D video and just as intriguing was what happened to the trading jackets of Barings Bank from the SIMEX trading pits.

For years I wondered and every attempt to discover the fate of the trading jackets always came up short. Inquiries to various trading floor staff I used to put my SIMEX orders through were fruitless as even the former Barings workers claimed that they no longer had their jackets. Recently I learned there is a good reason why because after the bankruptcy was announced, the jackets were left hanging in the coat room, eventually got collected and then were shipped to London w/other Barings items which the liquidators held onto for over a decade before being dealt with.

In April 2007 Nick Leeson's personal jacket was first offered briefly on ebay by the bankruptcy liquidators KPMG but the top bid of 16,100 GBP fell short of it's reserve price and was subsequently sold to Paul Taylor, a London investment manager for 21,000 GBP. Although that is a quite rich for my interest, I was traveling and didn't realize the jacket not only surfaced but changed hands until after it was finalized. Upon inquiry, I was told that there were no further jackets available and thought that was that.

Later in 2007, another jacket surfaced at a charity event titled the Distressed Investing Dinner and that Barings jacket was subsequently auctioned for 4,000 GBP.

It was fate however, that a London based collector of financial history contacted me recently to share his wonderful acquisition of the remaining six Barings jackets. And by fate, I mean that he wrote me while I was on vacation in Singapore and my hotel view was overlooking both Leeson's former office building (Ocean Towers) and also the site of where the SIMEX floor once stood.



And just past the former SIMEX floor is the infamous Harry's on Boat Quay which Leeson used to frequent. I myself am partial to Penny Black which is the pub next door.



But anyways back to the jackets....

The collector I corresponded with is a wonderful steward of financial history and was kind enough to share some photos below. He also opened the possibility of a museum or exhibition being able to borrow a jacket for display. If any entity would like to enquire about the potential, either post in the comments section or email tradingpithistory 'at' gmail.com and I'll be certain to forward on the request. I do not believe that any further Barings jackets exist beyond the eight which I described above but if there are any further Barings jackets, I'd love to hear of their certified history.

Baring's jackets are easily some of the most sought after and rare pieces of trading pit history and with all the recent scandals such as REFCO or Lehman, hedge fund implosions or other derivatives disasters such as Metallgesellschaft, Barings stands apart by having it's scandal begun and ended on the trading floor.

This blog will continue to revisit the Barings story in the future as more time becomes available so do check back.

Photos of LIFFE trading floor

There have been a number of inquiries about where to find photos of the LIFFE trading floor and a good resource is the LIFFE Facebook page where numbers of people have submitted photos they previously took. The content is open to the public w/out it being a necessary requirement to sign up for facebook and I hope everyone is respectful of the site so it remains open.

A visit to the NYMEX floor by Robert Downey Jr.