It is Crop Report Day.
Most of you Chalkheads
have seen the movie Trading Places at one point in your life. Remember
the scene when the trading pit starts buzzing with anticipation before the crop
report is released? The tension builds, the numbers come out, and all hell
breaks loose.
That was Hollywood's version of open outcry
trading. Believe me when I tell you, they were not far off.
The screaming, the pushing, the frantic
hand signals, the elbows flying, and the occasional shower of spit from some
lunatic trying to make a market. It was organized chaos.
Looking back, it was the perfect job
for a thirty-year-old Jumbo.
I am not so sure sixty-year-old Jumbo could
stand in that same pit today, waiting for an unemployment number, and summon
the same energy and enthusiasm. Hell, just watching those old videos on YouTube
makes my knees hurt.
Fortunately, I don't have to find out.
These days, when an economic report is
released, I am standing at my trading desk. The excitement is still there. The
adrenaline still flows. The clock ticks down, the numbers hit the screen, and
the markets still react, but the battlefield is a whole lot more forgiving.
I don't have arms waving inches from my
face. I don't have spit flying in every direction. Nobody is shoving me out of
the way to grab a bid or an offer.
And I don't have to fight my way through
a crowd of screaming grown men just to get a trade done.
There is still plenty of yelling. There are
still multiple orders coming at once, customers wanting fills, markets moving,
and the constant juggling act of getting everything executed in a timely and
orderly fashion.
The business hasn't lost its excitement.
It has simply changed its surroundings.
Thirty-year-old Jumbo was right where he
belonged, standing in the bond room at the Chicago Board of Trade, surrounded
by noise, confusion, and enough testosterone to power a small city.
And sixty-year-old Jumbo is right where
he belongs today.
I am no longer in that grand old Board of
Trade building, looking north at LaSalle Street. Instead, I am fourteen floors
above the suburbs, looking out over the western reaches of Chicagoland. The
view has changed, the noise has softened and the years have piled up, but the
anticipation of the next number hasn't changed a bit.
I am fortunate to still be in this
business. Fortunate to have experienced the trading floor in its glory days,
and fortunate that life has allowed me to keep doing something I love long
after the pits went quiet.
Thirty-year-old Jumbo had his time and
place, and so does sixty-year-old Jumbo.
Maybe that is what growing older is all
about. Understanding that you do not have to stand in the middle of the madness
to appreciate the excitement.
Sometimes the best seat in the house is the
one you have earned along the way. No matter how much the business changes,
some things will always remain the same.
Buy low and sell high.
Hit bids and lift offers.
Always listen for the roar of an
uptick and the scream of a downtick.
That will get you through a trading session,
and maybe even through the difficulties of life.
Gusto and astonishment, it is Friday.
