Do Floor Traders Still Exist

Floor trading still exists but it is responsible for a rapidly diminishing share of market activity just 10 in 2017 according to a cnbc report.

Do floor traders still exist.

There are a lot of people in trading firms who grew up with floor trading and don t want to give it up either because they feel more comfortable with it or because they might lose their job if they went away from it. Floor traders used to use the open outcry method in the pit of a commodity or stock exchange but now most of them use electronic trading systems and do not appear in the pit. I ve always wondered why there are still people on the floor of the new york stock exchange. However a few exchanges still have physical traders on the floor or located at the exchange.

Skilled floor brokers can often get better execution better pricing by working the order with other traders something that electronic systems generally cannot do so well. One example is the london metal exchange which still trades parts of the session in a ring which is synonymous with a pit. After working as a runner and clerk on the trading floor he was a trader on the screen for years before asking last year to return to the floor as a trader in the 10 year treasury options pit. Traders are still trading on the floor of.

Non electronic stock exchanges still exist because they used to exist. Listener john wang who dabbles in a little online trading wrote in to ask this. The days of pit trading have ended. As of 2019 much of the trading on the nyse is digital rather than physical and the exchange floor while still home to some traders is considerably less crowded than it used to be.

Execs acknowledge that the traders are useful for marketing but say there s more to it than that.