August 26 to September 1, 2012

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Monday, 27 August. Chicago Board of Trade. Chicago Il.


The first stop of our trip was the Chicago Board of Trade. After 20 minutes of walking through downtown Chicago trying to navigate through complex street lights without getting hit or separated, observing the buildings, interesting people and informative signs like “3000 people are hit by cars every year in Chicago” we made it to the Chicago Board of Trade safely.
               When the Trading began at 9:30 with the ring of a bell all the brokers and speculators instantly started yelling and giving hand signals so fast it seemed almost like chaos. Things would happen so fast it was hard to make out the details about the number of contracts and their prices. I can’t even imagine how crazy it would have been down on the floor back when all the trading was done face to face instead of now when only 10% of the trading occurs face to face.
               It was very interesting to see how things actually happen and work when farmers use hedging to reduce price risks for the future sales of their crops. 

Michael Goudy

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