My Years on the
Exchange
This great
building at the time was the apex of most stock transactions, the center of
capitalism; it was also an easy place to score some coke or pot. They pretty much flashed current bid and
offers (well if you knew where to go and most people knew where to go) for
various grades of pot, this at a time when being caught with as little as a
joint would get you jail time. No I did
not participate; I never got into weed except to be sociable if a joint was
passed around.
In my
section of the exchange floor, clerks actually smoked on the floor. Cigarettes were not allowed, but the
occasional joint was fired up. One of
the clerks I worked with carried a gun in a little man-purse thing. He said he needed it for credibility. He dealt in coke from time to time. Bruce was his name; he had several last
names, something to do with multiple welfare collections. He was a good guy believe it or not, and I
was never one to mess with a guy who carried a gun.
There were
thousands of workers on the floor of the exchange in 1971. There was one woman, a couple of blacks and
maybe a Hispanic or two; this in probably the most diverse city in the world.
Visitors to
the floor were treated with little respect.
Notes were stuck to their backs, talcum powder thrown on their shoes
when they were not looking, and then there was the standard “Spurring.” As the guest was distracted, paper cowboy spurs were taped to their shoes. While they walked around the floor sight-seeing, clerks and brokers alike
would yell out “Yee Haw!” and "Ride'm cowboy." Visitors (often these were captains of industry)
when they finally realized what was going on almost always reacted good
naturedly, and the crowd would roar their approval. Any other reaction and boos would rain down
upon them.
The one
thing about the brokers and clerks on the exchange, despite the shenanigans and
the immaturity, was their honesty. Trades
involving hundreds of thousands of dollars were seldom in dispute. A trader’s word was gold, if people did not
trust his word he was out of business.
When there was a dispute, it would be settled by a coin flip or
sometimes the two parties would just agree to split a loss.
When things
got busy the nonsense stopped. Trading
was much like in the movie “Trading Spaces,” what looked out of control was actually
controlled chaos. Everyone screamed and yelled out numbers and somehow clerks
kept track of the transactions.
When I left
the floor, trading was becoming automated.
When I retired years later, shares were exchanged at the touch of a button and the
chaos was mostly controlled by massive computers which trade at multiple
exchanges at once. Sometimes the wrong
button is pushed and a zero or two is accidentally added. Firms have gone out of business because someone
fat-fingered a zero.
The NYSE I
knew is gone, an era is over, probably not a bad thing. I am glad I was there to experience it when
it was ok to be a little crazy.
