Buy Low, Sell High

“I have no experience but I'm a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. That’s where you come in.” – Adam Sandler, The Wedding Singer.

My exploration of interests and possibilities yesterday took me into the financial realm with some time on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. I had a nice perch from which to watch the activity of the corn pit, and with deer-in-the-headlight eyes, I witnessed grown adults buying and selling this commodity using demonstrative gestures that until now, I have only seen among my Italian family.

For the Pop Culture pros out there: I found myself reminded of Cameron mocking traders and their hand signals in Ferris Buller’s Day Off. I even came Really close to launching into a parody of it myself but refrained for fear of accidentally trading with someone and not knowing it.

The moments before the opening bell were similar to the festivities before a sporting event. It is probably the best way to handle the fact that high-energy competition was only minutes away, but it absolutely could not start until the bell sounded. In the meantime, they fraternized in a way that I have never seen in a group of people who were about to start work.

Then the bell rang promptly at 9:30 and it all changed. A massive outpouring of energy, vocal and physical, seemed to shoot out of some invisible cannon. It seized the room and created a controlled chaos in which people were not afraid to throw their bodies around, take advantage of a deal and better their position for the day.

The room also became devoid of any courtesy or politeness once the horses were out of the gate, but that’s to be expected. When things can change direction and go North or South at any given moment, there isn’t time to say, “Excuse me,” as you try to get to where you are going. You either find a way to weave around the roadblock or just physically move it out of the way. I guess it depends on your body type and your comfort level with risk.

I found it hard to concentrate on anything for longer than 20 seconds. Part of that was due to the fact that the perimeter of the entire room, which is the size of a high school gymnasium but with considerably higher ceilings, was lined by a band of electronic boards full of information about the commodities being traded, the other markets and world news in general. For a data junkie like me, this was a fix like I had never seen before, and I found myself growing frustrated by my inability to decipher it.

Note: You can have all the data and information in the world, but if you can’t make heads or tails of it, it’s completely useless. And a huge part of utilizing something like that is knowing how to cut out that which you don’t need, cull what you do, and do something with it.

I really love the kind of crazed intensity that I saw, but I’m afraid daily exposure to it would make it commonplace. However, from what I am told, the fervor is often balanced out by huge moments of inactivity and boredom. Not to mention the market is only open from 9:30 to 1:15 so it’s kind of a small window in which that can happen.

Since I now have a feel for what goes on, I may go back and check it out again. No way to tell if it will sway me towards or away from pursuing it but it certainly will give me some new hand gestures to use at family gatherings.