Description
A former commodities trader gives an intimate glimpse into what it was like to work on the raucous exchange floors in the trading pits of Chicago and New York.
In 1989, Brad Schaeffer was working as an artist when his trader brother invited him to visit the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Schaeffer promptly quit his job and became a clerk in that most iconic arena of raw capitalism. During the next six years, Schaeffer rose from clerk to trader, making markets on Eurodollar options in Chicago and heating oil options in New York. In that time, jammed literally shoulder-to-shoulder, he screamed, flailed his arms, hurled expletives, and pushed and shoved his way through his day. He was a keen observer of the methodology, incidents, and personalities that made the now-extinct open outcry trading pits such a unique place to do business.
Life in the Pits recollects those last, most glorious days when red-faced alphas in colorful jackets performed thousa
