This is truly a story. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. I am messing around with writing some stories. I thought I’d share a chapter I wrote here to see what people thought. My goal is to put together a series of short stories that only have the trading floor in common. As we used to say, “There are a thousand stories in the naked city” and the trading floor was a naked city.
I’d love your feedback in the comments. If you never were on a trading floor, what does this sound like to you? Would you want to purchase a book of fiction about it? Is the language “too inside” and do you need it spelled out for you? If so, how? In a chapter, or in a glossary? As foreward or index?
If you were on the trading floor, and have a story you want to share with me privately, feel free to email me. I have scads of them already but you can never have too many.
Chapter 0 The Energy Company
The market had opened limit down. It was the third day in a row the market opened limit down but today it looked like it might trade. Harold was short. Harold was short almost as much as the exchange and his clearing firm would let him be short. Almost as much as his bank account said he could afford to be short.
Harold was a grizzled old veteran of the Chicago trading floors. He was in his mid-fifties. More than anyone else in the pit. He suspected the market would go lower. Of course, it helped his friend who happened to be an ex-exchange employee who now was employed by the US Treasury Department gave him a good tip. A wink and a nod never hurt.
He wore a light blue trading jacket. He had on a wildly patterned yellow shirt with dark blue slacks and black shoes with thick rubber soles. He wore a plain dark blue tie that was loosely draped around his neck, almost like a noose before the hangman tightened it. He wore a toupee to try and look younger since so many young bucks were coming down to the exchange to try their luck.
All day, the pit seemed on a razor’s edge. There was a scent in the air similar to before a prize fight when the two boxers were waiting for the first-round bell, mentally measuring each other. The price action had been minimal that day and anytime the market tried to rally off limit down, a flood of sell orders would slap the rally in the face and put it to bed. The monotonous silence was deafening with the air pierced by the sounds of order fillers steadily calling out the number of contracts they had to sell at the limit. It was a monotone that trailed off into the ether. It sounded like the mooing of cows in a pasture.
“Sell 1000 at the limit…..Sell 1000 at the limit….”
“Sell 200 at the limit. Sell 200 at the limit”
No one looked like they would start buying to end the stalemate. No one wanted to end the stalemate before the market close at 1 PM. Many traders were short and would happily come in tomorrow to see if the market would go even lower. Local traders stood still in their spots, chatting aimlessly and quietly to each other gazing at newswire boards and price boards on the upper walls of the exchange.
The clock on the wall ticked, second by second. When the time showed 12:34:56 a roar emerged from the entire trading floor with the requisite laughter and huzzahs.
At precisely 12:41:00, Harold started jumping up and down, his toupee bouncing up and down off his head. He began buying everything he could from anyone he could.
“Buy ‘em, buy ‘em, buy ‘em!”, he shouted as he made eye contact with every order filler in the pit. His voice was megaphone loud and got everyone’s attention.
Order fillers responded in chorus, yelling, “Sold to you!”, and scribbling feverishly on order tickets ripping the duplicates and throwing them over their shoulders at their clerks. Clerks were waving their hands at their customer’s desks trying to get their attention.
The market was going to trade.
Harold’s arms gesticulated wildly in the air in a grabbing motion, palms facing his body. He was trying to buy back every single contract he was short cashing in! Traders were pushing and screaming trying to get to order fillers. Traders who were idly playing cards in the breakroom sprang into a sprint that would make an Olympian jealous from the breakroom to the pit once the action started. Paper was flying. Heat boiled out of the pit like an iron ore blast furnace. Tempers flared. Old grudges emerged and new ones were forged. Sweat and spit migrated through the air.
Inches away from Harold was Irving. Irving had just gone through his second divorce and was trying to look younger too. He’d spent some time in the tanning salon. Instead of a toupee, he used hair-colored spray paint on his round bald spot that looked like a target on the back of his head. The heat bursting out of the pit caused Irving to start sweating profusely. The dark ink from the spray was running down his neck, staining his white shirt collar. Traders in the pit that needed to sell burrowed their way to Harold grabbing his powder blue trading jacket with their meaty fists trying to get his attention.
Harold tried to hold his own. Bodies were barreling into him as if he was in the middle of a rugby scrum. Harold wasn’t tall. But he would be taller than everyone by the closing bell today when he stood on his wallet. Especially if he could cover his position.
In five minutes, the market would close. Time was running short.
Pretty intense...I like it! I'm not a trader, but active in investments and business, so I have a rudimentary understanding worse than a trader or "trader-adjacent" but better than the general public.
The first thing that caught me was "limit down." I think I know what that means, but it would be helpful to narrate what that is more specifically and how it happened to give some background to the drama.
The second was that he was short. How did he get there? Maybe that's a flashback. Describing what he did might help people who don't understand what shorting is and the limitations and risks in it.
If it's a book aimed at traders then these are unnecessary. If it's at regular people, it's necessary.
Just my cents on the technical. But I would read it! Great start!
please better define "limit down". We need more context, more references (maybe) to poker; more reference to the commodity itself (that has to have a life of its own).