“Floored”, directed by Andrew McAllister, from Film Buff (an
appropriate name for a distributor), Cinetic and TradeFilm, precedes “The Pit”
(2010), reviewed here Nov. 3, 2012, and traces the effect of computerized and
programmed commodities trading on veteran pit traders at the Chicago Board of
Trade (instead of New York, as in the other fim).
In Chicago, programmed trading started being implemented in
1997. Until then, traders, hundred of
them, crowded the pit using a paper-driven “Open Outcry” system. And, as in New York, many traders have lost
traction in the new system and don’t understand the culture of rapid computing.
One speaker makes the point that human trading adds “liquidity”.
But “nobody’s bulletproof”, as one red T-shirt says.
One trader described his goal in life as “becoming a father”,
rather an antithesis of what I experienced.
The film comes to its "end" with the Financial Crisis of 2008, and President Bush addressing the nation in a monotone. People who traded manually the old-fashioned way had gotten their revenge.
The official site for the film is here.
Wikipedia attribution link for Chicago Board of Trade
Building.
I remember that I spent Aug. 31, 1997 in Chicago, the last
day of a certain period of my life!
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