If NASA's Mission Control were run by the boys from Animal House, it would look a lot like the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
You pay $250,000 for a seat, but you can't sit down.
The word ‘seat' is actually an irony, because when you finally sit down to sign the contract, it's probably the last time you're off your feet.
Futures exchanges are a little like airlines. Everybody wants one as a matter of national pride, even if nobody knows how to run it or wants to use it.
An exchange floor is a crucible of ideas, markets, events. Eventually ideas sprout from that for improving a market or for whole new markets. Without ideas and the interchange of ideas, you're never going to get an innovative process to work.
As night follows day, exchanges have to merge. Anyone who doesn't think so has their head in the sand.
AsiaRisk, April, 1999, p. 10.
Looking down upon the London Metal Exchange's (LME) arcane trading "ring" is something akin to viewing a sacred copy of that old Led Zeppelin album with the embedded cardboard disc that you can spin to change the look of the cover.
Futures, August, 2001, p. 78.
Last updated: January 9, 2011