Best Thread The Arcade Traders "Pit Stories" Thread

Any tales of David Kyte (pictured on the front cover of Sunday Times magazine, 1987).

Apparently he was the biggest trader in the Long Gilt pit, at one time holding more positions than the total underlying (I stand corrected on that point). The few guys I knew from Kyte were sound, but I never met him.

Wasn’t the FTSE options pit predominantly Dutch guys? Who were they?

A slight digression, this old (and best) thread from Elite Trader, especially contributions from billynomates and whodareswins, epitomises the unique English humour reflected in this thread. What happened to these guys?

It is crude, some of a sensitive disposition may be offended, but it is brilliant. Totally over the Yanks’ heads.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28911&perpage=6&highlight=sas&pagenumber=1

Grant.
 
yeah, one of the MFF runners had a quite artistic streak for it
cowboy spurs made from trading cards, yep got done with them too
great thing about trading cards was the never ending supply of roach material :cheesy:
 
A slight digression, this old (and best) thread from Elite Trader, especially contributions from billynomates and whodareswins, epitomises the unique English humour reflected in this thread. What happened to these guys?

It is crude, some of a sensitive disposition may be offended, but it is brilliant. Totally over the Yanks’ heads.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28911&perpage=6&highlight=sas&pagenumber=1

Grant.

thats pretty funny stuff! taking sarcasm to a whole new extreme altogether. Cheers for the link, was a good read!
 
GJ,

Thanks for the clarification.

To avoid revealing their hands, some of the large houses would occasionally by-pass their own floor traders and execute through another on a give-up basis. Any names/info here?

Grant.
 
Me and my buddy were couple of the youngest guys on the floor trading our own book at the CBOT.

When things get slow, everyone clowns around. Occassionally there are visitors that would get waltzed through the pit area.

This particular day there wasn't much action, and a line of visitors were getting waltzed through, one of them was older slightly cute blonde, she was looking around, and we were looking at her walk by. She looked at my buddy, and she did a double-take, and proceeded to purposely avoid looking at us.

I couldn't figure out why, and it was noticeable. My buddy turned around and he gave me a big smile. I couldn't help myself, I broke out in laughter. He slipped in one of those fake dental pieces, where the teeth are yellow and rotten and black. It looked quite disgusting.

Anyways, thought of that when reading this thread. There are others, but maybe later, will post more.
 
Kyte was very very big in his time, super sharp as well. One of the very few down there who could make (and lose on occasions) a 7 figure sum over a day!

Some say his biggest skill was making sense of the current psychology and mood of the market and then using this to his advantage. That's one of the reasons he would always talk to everyone to ask their views, didn't matter if you were a top trader or a yellow jacket with 2 months under your belt - he wanted to know where you thought the market was going.

PS. He also had (most probably still does) a photographic memory
 
. . . The floor was always pretty transparent and while yes people did spread stuff around to keep it a bit quiet . . .

Get PitScum to recount his Britain leaving the ERM story . . . iirc, it ends up with him answering the phone after hours when he's gone back to the office to check his trades . . Robert Leigh-Pemberton (then Governor of the BoE) was on the other end!
 
A slight digression, this old (and best) thread from Elite Trader, especially contributions from billynomates and whodareswins, epitomises the unique English humour reflected in this thread. What happened to these guys?

It is crude, some of a sensitive disposition may be offended, but it is brilliant.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28911&perpage=6&highlight=sas&pagenumber=1

Grant.

Priceless, thanks for posting that, just laughed my head off reading it.

Bloody marvelous



Is whodareswins still around somewhere ?

PS, a good read RE floor stories is this:

http://www.amazon.com/Leg-Spread-Adventures-Trillion-Dollar-Commodities/dp/0767908554
 
Marcus,

Glad you liked it. People like that will be around forever.

Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out later.

Grant.
 
People like that will be around forever.

He said in the thread somewhere that he spent 10 years on the LIFFE floor, and then went on to Mac, whatever that's called in it's current incarnation.

The stuff he wrote in that thread, the humour, irony and and inventiveness (is that a word ?!?), he's a real Master of the Universe, I'd love to go party with him at some point :D
 
Anley,

Thanks for the insight re David Kyte. Photographic memory. Interesting.

I worked with an old broker who could recall the price of any FTES 100 (?) stocks on any day oevr the last x years. Couldn't see what use that was though.

At the same firm was the oldest member of the Stock Exchange - 82 years old and still working every day. He was a real gentleman. He drove from his house in North Wales to the office in Manchester, and back, every day.

Ithink I've mentioned this elsewhere but an old broker told me of a family member of one of the old jobbing firms, pre Big-bang. He would regularly entertain the pension fund manager of a multi-national with very long lunches. He would get him absolutely sozzled and then load him up big-time on stocks.

Grant.
 
I heard a great story from a colleague who used to work at iCap. Apparently they had this huge 30 metre whiteboard on the dealing floor, and the juniors would have to write the prices for deals on the board. Pricing mistakes would usually involve a shoe or other object being flung at the hapless broker. But the funny part of the tale was a ritual called the "Duck Run" which would happen on Friday afternoons when it was quiet... one of the desk juniors would be nominated to wear a duck costume, complete with beak, webbed feet & wings etc, and the "run" involved him walking as fast as he could from one end of the board to the other while the whole floor hurled balls of paper at him & tried to hit him.

it started getting a bit out of hand when larger & more solid objects started getting thrown, and apparently iCap banned the duck run when someone threw a stapler across the floor and hit the duck square in the bonce.. :eek: :cheesy:
 
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I've also got a smile-worthy picture from christmas eve a few years back - I'll try and dig it out and post here over the weekend, of a trader riding one of those folding city bicycles round and round the Refco trading floor as fast as he could :LOL:
 
got another icap story from a beery night out yesterday - "wa nker of the week" :cheesy:
the desks would keep track of everybodys stories, exploits and general misbehaviour, and then every friday the brokers would nominate a "wa nker of the week" based on whoever had the most amusing or humiliating antics to his name - early on Friday morning the "wa nker" would be given a bright yellow jacket with a large W on the back which he would have to wear all day, to the amusement and derision of his colleagues. At around 3pm in the afternoon, someone would get on the tannoy and announce to everyone on all three icap floors exactly what the "wa nker" had done to deserve his jacket that week.
 
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worse than rlp on the dog

Get PitScum to recount his Britain leaving the ERM story . . . iirc, it ends up with him answering the phone after hours when he's gone back to the office to check his trades . . Robert Leigh-Pemberton (then Governor of the BoE) was on the other end!

...me and my trading pal got back to the old gerrard office, they are all sinking champagne like they were going to be shot in the morning when the batman to the company chairman calls us pair of tow rags in and tells us to be discreet who and how we ever disclosed events of that day and that they would help us.................we say why?????

he says, well, the sfa want to talk to you......................my jaw never recovered from the drop the polished mahogany desk of his.....

mind you, we got him and his batman back that xmas, we nicked his turkey :) but then, thats another story :)
 
I've also got a smile-worthy picture from christmas eve a few years back - I'll try and dig it out and post here over the weekend, of a trader riding one of those folding city bicycles round and round the Refco trading floor as fast as he could :LOL:


who remembers the liffe floor and jonno holding the record (several times) for walking round the perimiter of the floor the quickest, often doing one of his 'funny/john cleese' walks? (it was illegal to run on the floor - rules of the floor and for competitors!!). every one was :clap: and :sleep: it was soooo :LOL:

no one could beat him - even after a toot of the ol' (eerm - can i say this...) 'marching powder'

those were the dayz!
 
Neil Norman Quotes

anyone remember nutty norman here??????????

A few Neil Norman quotes for you all to enjoy...

"I've got a horses head, a greyhound’s body, shark fin lats, sand dunes for calves, a few inches taller I could have been a model"

"Me and my financier (not a misspelling) went to the Sistine Chapel, Michael Angelo took the C#*@ 4 years to paint, would you believe it, there was 600 people there, 300 of them looking at my bird, the other 300 looking at me!"

Bund trader Gary got married and upon return to work was met by Neil Norman one of his wedding guests "Here Gary, do you think the people at your wedding were looking at my bird or my suit?"

"I just had an indoor swimming pool out in my gaff, cost me over 100 bags, was going to have a mosaic of me with two mermaids cos I got two arms two birds and all that but decided to just go with a mosaic of my face" (True story)

After a dip in the ocean on a stag in Cuba "I have just my 15k diamond bracelet, now that was an expensive swim"

During the same stag event whilst sitting at a fashion show (Don't ask why they were there) but he had a $50 bill on his forehead and was whistling like the clangers to get the models attention.

Neil was good mates with a number of footballers, these stories are some exerts of those glory days

"I was at dinner on Friday night with Jamie Redknapp, Phil Babbs and Stan Colleymore and some bird comes over and says, ere, your Neil Norman aint ya?" "25 Millions quid worth of players and she recognises me!" (This was when footballers were all underpaid back then).

Whilst on holiday with all the Man Utd players in Aiya Napa "Excuse me mister, I know who all these footballers are but who are you? said a young lady, "Well darlin', its lifestyles of the rich and famous, I'm the rich they are the famous!"

Saturday evening the Man Utd boys rush down the motorway to Neils house before a big westend night out "Can you believe how vein these footballers are, they drive all the way to my gaff and watch themselves on my tele"

I am sure there are more but right now that's all that spring to mind...enjoy! :cool:
 
Batesy, who now does the squawk from Sigma, he used to **** people off by shoving his finger up his ****, waiting for them to drop there guard, then he would rub his finger under there nose. Didn't matter how much washing you did that smell was terrible.

Picture the scene, late 80's

A Tullett and Tokyo director was retiring, a farewell bash was to be held downstairs in an underground bar for clients, colleagues and friends, people flying in from all over the world. On the very day the director was very ill and unable to attend his own farewell do.

Still the show must go on, one of the evenings entertainments was for a young lady to perform an act of fellatio on the poor unsuspecting director but due to the sudden illness there was a need for a body double, who could be asked to stand in willingly at the last minute, there was no 2nd thoughts but Batsey was the man for the job (pun intended).

When the time arrived it was not Batsey who you felt sorry for but the girl who had to perform the act because before she had even arrived on the small stage Batsey was already naked and preparing himself for the action ahead.

skipping to the end of a short story (no pun intended) Batsey undecided what to do with the "finale outcome" chose to release himself on the front row of people standing close to the stage. One of the worst but memorable climaxes to any staged event.

I cannot tell you how much business went through the Tulletts booth on the back of the circulating story but hasten to add he became infamous from that very day.

==========================================================================

Invisible Motorcycle Wall of Death

Batsey was revving up in the middle of a pit whose trading participants knew the drill and had moved to the top steps to allow for the "Invisible Motorcycle Wall of Death". The pit officials who obviously enjoyed the banter had to act in accordance and send verbal warnings to Batsey against such action, of course the warnings were not heard above his own internal revving sounds

Starting in small circles and slowly getting bigger to incorporate the inner steps of the short sterling pit. travelling in circles from the middle of the pit to the upper outter steps then culminating back into the center to the applause of his fellow pit mates was always something the pit traders enjoyed once a month at Batsey's expense as the exchange had no choice but to fine him.

==========================================================================

Batsey meets the Global head of JP Morgan

The exchange told him to take the day off on the Monday which was like a red rag to a bull, not only would he now not take the day off but he would explore ways of taking his antics one step further.

It would appear the big hoo ha was a floor visit by the Global head of JP Morgan, Batsey had a cunning plan.

On the day in question the Global head of JP Morgan was standing next to the Euribor pit which had a number of steps leading to the top step, Batsey moved onto the opposite side of the Euribor pit to the visitor, the pit parted like the red sea with moses and he started his descent into the middle of the pit, gaining enough momentum to push himself forcibly back up the otherside, upon reaching the top step he launched himself horizontally and rugby tackled the poor unsuspecting visitor who fell ungracefully to the floor with Batesy on top of him.

The exchange fined Batsey heavily and gave him a temporary ban
 
Hmmm I'm concerned about naming people tbh!!! I'll stick with mnemonics that I can remember, else it'll be just first names or nicknames...

If you remember RAW from Alpha (later MFF) you'll know he was a BIG muscled guy, when I was a runner even if he was *really* busy he'd always find the time to ask me (and all other young runners) if I liked Gladiator movies... He threw me into the middle of the pit once, him and BIP did their best to keep me in there too but they got told off by the pit police ;) It's all in good jest though, they offered me a job as a runner a few month later and I worked as a broker for them at MFF/ DMF just before the floor closed. Good bunch, nice guys!

I'll never forget seeing Nigel in the Sterling hitting paper for 20,000 lots and saying quite loudly "Oooo I love a bit of size!". I also remeber Mark G in the Euromark doing a similar size in a fast market with JP Morgan, it's only when you see these kinds of things that you realize what a small fish you really are...

Another great legend with Nigel (Sterling) was that some new hot trader was trying to impress people by telling them he'd just bought a Bentley, someone said to Nigel "Hey Nige, you've got a Bentley haven't you?" and Nigel, being Nigel replied "A Bentley? I've got one for each foot..." Classic! :)

Pobster
Nigel did a TV documentary back in the late 80's with a few other floor people, the classic which he didn't ever live down was the comment on the show from his wife "In the beginning we didn't always have it this easy, we only had the one car!"

Dad as he was affectionately known amongst the pit always had a single name or catchphrase for everyone he met, which never ceased to amuse people. He would walk in the smoking lounge just dropping them like bombs on people...happy days!

His off the hip W@#$%er hand signal to Trevor Kline who made a fortune by merely copying Dad was always a favourite.

I remember Goldman’s coming in asking for Blue Sep and Dad saying Yeah 2 Bid, Goldman’s said "Size?", Dad replied "Yeah Size!" Goldman’s client obviously wanted an indication but Dad was playing with the big boys and just stuck with "2 bid Sep". Goldman’s trader said "sell you 20k"; Dad replied "Yeah done, 2 bid Sep for Size" talk about seen off :whistling

He is a legend in his own right!!!
 
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