How do people trade in the pits?

(Late 70's early 80's)

I lost my wedding ring in the pit. I was newly married and the ring felt confining so I have put it in my shirt pocket. Sometimes later I have reached down to the steps for some slips that were knocked out of my hand and the the ring fell out.

One of my most difficult trades was when I was shoved and lost my balance while legging into a good size spread. I ended up with the wrong side, the market moved and it took me days to make up the losses.

When I was leaving the floor and posted my seat for sale a fellow I disliked wanted to buy it but I refused.
The very next day the Falklans war broke out and my seat lost over 15k in value because some Argentinians popped off their extra seats.. The price rebounded in due time, of course.

One thing I liked about floor trading, at a time when in most businesses bs rules traders are their word. If a trader weasels out of a transaction or has to split errors with others more then a couple of times people simply ignore that trader.
 
Quote from Nasdaq5048:

Do you or most locals just offer a few ticks higher right after you bought the bid? And what % of your trades result in scratches?

With your SnP example, the math is amazing. Given a regular spread in the pit is 30 to 50 cents, if you can do 10 cars and make 50 cents, thats $1250 a day (very decent living indeed). How do able is that? And how big is the risk when your target is only 50 cents?
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90% of the locals down here are scalpers, buying/selling and then turning around and offering/bidding for a few ticks profit. Some of the traders, including myself, use a handheld device in the pit to arb against the electronic trading (grains/livestock trade side-by-side). Let's say I just got filled at 53.375 in the pit and Globex best quote is 53.400, I can go make that one tick, or $10, in that few seconds.

Most of us try to get out of the trade (and offset it) within seconds of getting into it. I do on average about 1000-1300 cars a day in the front month of hogs. To compare, Hogs in the pit do anywhere between 12,000 and 20,000. Locals really do make the market and provide excellent liquidity.

I don't actively trade the S&P, hogs every day for me. More recently, when there is a lot of noise coming from the pit (some 300 feet from the hogs) some of us we'll run over there and try to pick a direction and make markets.
 
Although the pit still has excellent liquidity, from the trade sheet attached, most of the volume has migrated over to the screen. Remember though locals on the floor do a lot of the electronic volume.
 
Quote from jsmooth:

CBOT
http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,936,00.html

CME
http://www.cme.com/trading/mem/price/leaseprices.html

NYMEX
http://www.nymex.com/ss_nymex_lease.aspx

COMEX Div.
http://www.nymex.com/ss_comex_lease.aspx

MGEX
http://www.mgex.com/seat_prices.html

KCBT (i dont think they have exact prices on there website...but i talked to them about 3-4 months ago and it was about $500)
http://kcbt.com/membership_6.html

...LANDIS: Very interesting story about WTC attack and what it was like on the floor that day
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thnx jsmooth
 
In the pit you don't use the handle. So assume this is what you see on your screen:

908.0 (bid) 1000 qty on the bid ....908.25 offer...200 lot

The guy on the squawk box is saying "8 even bid.... 8.25's offered"

Or could say " Eight at eight quarter" meaning the same. If the price up ticks he could say "8 half bid" ...naming the direction, you assume there's an offer at 8.75 and assume the 8.5 bid is trading cause it just turned. "At" usually describes the offer...and its customary to to name quantity first w/ offer...as in " 200 offered at 9" or just 200 at 9. While its customary to name your price first when bidding, as in "8.5 bid on 200" .

I can follow it but thats how I was taught to talk about the market (clerked on the floor, backed by locals that were on the floor and then the screen)....but I remember hearing one of those before I traded and had no clue what the guy was saying. I own a seat on the CME and only trade on the screen...most locals w/ seats trade on the screen now, most cme/cbot pits have a lot less locals.
 
Quote from John47:

In the pit you don't use the handle. So assume this is what you see on your screen:

908.0 (bid) 1000 qty on the bid ....908.25 offer...200 lot

The guy on the squawk box is saying "8 even bid.... 8.25's offered"

Or could say " Eight at eight quarter" meaning the same. If the price up ticks he could say "8 half bid" ...naming the direction, you assume there's an offer at 8.75 and assume the 8.5 bid is trading cause it just turned. "At" usually describes the offer...and its customary to to name quantity first w/ offer...as in " 200 offered at 9" or just 200 at 9. While its customary to name your price first when bidding, as in "8.5 bid on 200" .

I can follow it but thats how I was taught to talk about the market (clerked on the floor, backed by locals that were on the floor and then the screen)....but I remember hearing one of those before I traded and had no clue what the guy was saying. I own a seat on the CME and only trade on the screen...most locals w/ seats trade on the screen now, most cme/cbot pits have a lot less locals.
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Thanks John , i know all this and i understand what he is talking about i can follow him easily but i meant in my question : is it really possible for him to keep up whith what it is happening in the floor ?
 
the floor is full of info, not enough but 100 times more than you can read on the web and see on msnbc, if you are at it long enough , the more info, the easier to read the market, not to mention the herd mentality , in other words, when the market starts to turn on your screen with what ever indications you are keying off of, it happened on the floor 1 minute or 2 ago, as far as who to trade with, your name is your livelyhood so if you don't honor trades ,the word is out and you can't get anyone to trade with you....to open an account and rent a seat, the minimum is a lot higher than these electronic accts, and have no clue as to a minimum cash to open acct today
 
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