Trading Floor

The dregs drown each other out in the pit, where the world's fate is frittered away, forced into free fall, or sent soaring into the heights of prosperity. The intensity churned out in this temple to the ancient practice of trading is a strange mix between the gladiator's arena and the sacred wind that spreads seeds and hence fruit around the land. There is no more dynamic and difficult to understand human activity than the trading floor. It's thrilling just to stand here. A "trading floor" is a trading venue. This expression often refers to a place where traders or stock brokers meet in order to buy and sell equities. Open outcry is the name of a method of communication between professionals on a stock exchange or futures exchange. It involves shouting and the use of hand signals to transfer information primarily about buy and sell orders. Numbers one through five are gestured on one hand, and six through ten are gestured in the same way only held sideways at a 90 degree angle (index finger out sideways is six, two fingers is seven, and so on). Numbers gestured from the forehead are blocks of ten, and blocks of hundreds and thousands can also be displayed. The signals can otherwise be used to indicate months, specific trade or option combinations, or additional market information. These rules may vary among exchanges or even among floors within the same exchange; however, the purpose of the gestures remains the same. The part of the trading floor where this takes place is called a pit.