Gonna try to do LiveStock later today 1-2PM EST live from Mykonos…tune in to see if I can pull this off!
I probly shoulda seen this movie by now, but as PennyStocking Silver subscribers and TIMalert subscribers know, I’ve been a bit busy…check out the summary of Floored The Movie on Investimonials (and please leave a review if you’ve seen it already!):
A world that’s more riot than profession, the trading floors of Chicago are a place where gambling your family’s mortgage is all in a day’s. At a time when markets are unhinged, FLOORED offers a unique window to this lesser-known world of finance. These men may not have degrees, but they’ve got guts, and penchant for excess that solicits simultaneous feelings of revulsion- and a desire to root them on. But like many aspects of our economy, technology is changing the way these traders do business, and these eccentric pit denizens aren’t the type to take kindly to new tricks. Computerized trading may take the emotion out of the job, but it may also take some of these old-timers out- dinosaurs in a young man’s game.
Here’s the Floored trailer:
And an interview with the director:
CHIOTAKIS: Why are these people screaming?
ALLEN SMITH: Well these guys are screaming because they’re trying to buy and sell. And they’re actually buying for themselves. And when they’re selling, they’re selling for themselves, so they’re pretty anxious to do well.
CHIOTAKIS: And what are they doing? They’re buying and selling what?
ALLEN SMITH: Pork bellies, milk, grains, oil. I mean, you name it. They actually trade the weather, believe it or not.
CHIOTAKIS: So obviously the documentary talks about how there are fewer and fewer traders in the pit. What’s causing these people to vanish?
ALLEN SMITH: Technology, basically. Computers just do it faster.
CHIOTAKIS: There’s this one scene in the documentary. It’s this floor trader debating with the computer trader and he says, “I can’t beat the computer.” I want to hear a little bit of that.
SCENE FROM “FLOORED:”I say the computer is the worst and the most evil thing of trading that I’ve ever seen.
CHIOTAKIS: I mean that’s an impassioned argument. The guy’s saying, “This is my livelihood and this inanimate object made it go away.”
ALLEN SMITH:Yeah, I mean the thing is these guys have been doing something their whole life one way. And then someone comes in and says, “No, you’re not going to do it like this anymore. Here’s a computer, and you do it like this. And you do it quietly and you sit and you mind your manners, and you click “buy” when you want to buy and you click “sell” when you want to sell. So they have a problem with that. These guys, like you said, they scream and they yell. They look each other in the eye. It’s like a poker game. Now it’s anonymous.
CHIOTAKIS: James, how have the people you interviewed for your documentary, how have they fared in the financial crisis?
ALLEN SMITH: It was really tough. A couple of guys had a really hard time. And they felt it, they really felt it. And you see that in the film. There’s another couple of guys who did quite well. Again, the market moves really quickly when it goes down. And they can take advantage of that by selling high and buying it back low.
Posted in Wall Street Movies