There were many years when the shortened trading day after Thanksgiving was busy and chaotic.
Before the electronic trading closed the pits the volatility of human involvement was higher. Emotion drove the market more back then, not Algos.
Anything can happen when you take a hungover skeleton crew and put them in charge of price discovery.
One year we had four out of nine in our group working on Black Friday. Just four of us and we decided to send someone to Maxwell Street to buy two dozen Polish.
So three of us are left to watch the customers, fill the orders and check the trades. The bonds rally a point and buy stops are getting triggered. We had a half a dozen locals in the pit and all I can think about is where the fuck my Maxwell Street Polish was!!!
It was at that point in my career that working on the trading floor was easy, but on that day it was difficult. We made it difficult on ourselves.
Those Bloody Mary’s down at Ceres hit the spot after the market closed. First one had that shampoo effect that made for a second drunken escapade in just forty eight hours.
Oh to be in your twenties and thirties in the 1990’s. It was a golden age.
