He writes market commentary for Options Week based on observed options trade volume and reports from floor brokers.
They had seen electronic exchanges wreak havoc on floor brokers in Europe, and they didn't want to lose the business.
They had seen electronic exchanges work havoc on floor brokers in Europe, and they didn't want to lose the business.
We see this ability to understand patterns by instinct everywhere: artists, air traffic controllers, trading-floor brokers, criminologists, jazz musicians, etc.
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By the end of the day, floor brokers were processing orders manually.
The New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday had reopened for trading after a two-day shutdown, and floor brokers were low-key and unemotional.
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In times of high volatility, trading would revert to floor brokers.
In 1992 the Merc launched electronic trading, but gradually so as not to roil floor brokers who would one day have to give up the pits.
But the hybrid system means far fewer specialists are needed, and many specialist firms and banks have been firing floor brokers or reassigning them to trading desks off the floor.
His likely successor at NYSE Euronext (nyse: NYX - news - people ), Duncan Niederauer, is a fellow Goldman alum who has expressed disdain for floor brokers--another sign the ever-shrinking auction floor of the Big Board is giving way to NYSE's electronic systems.
At the same time, it promised to keep the pits open until trading volume became insignificant, spruced up its electronic trading software, passed out 250 handhelds to traders, opened a computer room so that floor brokers and traders can practice online trading and courted electronic trading groups popping up worldwide.
When stocks started to plummet that day, trading at the New York Stock Exchange slowed down while its floor-based human brokers tried to sort out good orders from bad.
Speed is certainly the reason by NYSE bought Archipeligo Holdings last year and made changes that have meant the elimination of most of the specialist brokers who once crowded the floor in favor of a new electronic trading system that only pumps trades to human brokers when there is high volatility.
In electronic trading there are no elbows, no yells and no brokers pacing the floor.
The trading floor lost a cadre of brokers thanks to electronic trading.
Thain again refuted that idea in his speech, telling the crowd that there was "absolutely" a future for the specialists and brokers who work on the floor of the exchange.
According to the government's report, some of the country's biggest brokers were buying shares on the floor of the stock exchange and selling them on the kerb, where prices were generally 20% higher.
The owner of the other unit on the fifth floor spends most of her time in South America, brokers said.
While he has spoken with several candidates, brokers say the building's confined ground floor and other eccentricities may have discouraged some potential tenants.
But many brokers adapted to that fear by following their customers off the floor.
"Everybody is out there trying to replace the former function of the floor broker, " says Steve Sanders, a managing director and head of business development at Interactive Brokers.
The majority go to Chicago and Boston, where Schwab's own floor specialists handle the orders and earn about 0.2 cents per share, or sell them to other brokers.
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