The CME Group Inc. said Tuesday that its last few remaining pits in Chicago where agricultural commodities options traders still yelled their bids will be close permanently. Futures transactions had already been fully replaced by electronic trading, while options pits had been active until March 2020, when Covid-19 measures forced them to be closed.
CME, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchange, had already closed floor trading for most futures contracts in Chicago and New York in 2015 as open outcry had fallen to just 1% of total volumes. The options pits in Chicago, with history stretching back 173 years, were the exchange’s last bastion for old-school commodities floor traders.
Stories from the pits are legendary, with tales of hiring 6 foot 6 inch traders so they’d have a physical advantage. Some people put lifts in their shoes.