REAL WORLD
Remember The Trading Pits For What They Stood For
The Rucker Park Of Capitalism
by Jonathan Hoenig
A venerable part of the traders' world is threatened, but its tricks and techniques will live on.
The best players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) have all played in Manhattan's Rucker Park, the cultural Mecca for "streetball," as basketball is referred to there at 155th Street and 8th Avenue. It is this hallowed ground in Harlem, not the sacred turf of financial markets -- Wall Street -- that comes closest to describing what floor trading in Chicago has been about for more than 150 years.
Three major futures and options trading floors can be found in Chicago at present, but the real trading courts are the old, time-worn North and South trading rooms at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), located at the picturesque end of the LaSalle Street financial canyon. You can trace almost the entire history of modern agricultural and financial markets to these two rooms, proving that the Chicago pits are truly the equivalent of Rucker Park in terms of capitalism.
Such basketball greats as Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain, Julius "Dr. J" Erving, Vince "Air Canada" Carter, and Allen Iverson all played at Rucker Park at one time or another. The roster is impressive, but if you believe the trash-talkers of New York streetball, they may not have been the best ballplayers on the asphalt. Many of the moves on today's NBA courts were invented by Rucker Park regulars -- kids who had no identity until they invented a mind-blowing move.
The rocking crossover dribble that Philadelpha 76ers' All-Star guard Allen Iverson used to create all those oohs and aahs in basketball legend Michael Jordan's last season? That was first done by Rucker legend "Pee-Wee" Kirkland in the 1960s, long before Iverson. NBA refs may call it a "palm"; streetball players call it the "poetry of Pee-Wee."
The equivalent in the court of capitalism occurs when legendary bond trader David Ryan buys 1,000 futures contracts two ticks off the day's low and bids higher, while the Japanese institutions scramble to cover their shorts. Most likely, the market rallies and Ryan makes six figures in minutes. This sort of activity happens every day on the Chicago trading floors. It's been this way for more than 150 years.
Jonathan Hoenig (www.capitalistpig.com) is a Chicago-based trader and author.
Excerpted from an article originally published in the October 2000 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2000, Technical Analysis, Inc.
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