CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — It’s the end of an era for Chicago's commodity trading pits.
After being shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, CME Group this week said all but one of the pits will remain closed for good.
Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at PRICE Futures Group in Chicago, recalls being a floor runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1979 at the start of his career.
“I still remember the first time I walked down on that floor. It was like you were in a different world,” he told the Noon Business Hour on Wednesday. “The amount of people; the activity; the seriousness of the people in the trading pits — it was just overwhelming.
“It’s really a sad day for the city of Chicago to see this coming to an end.”
It’s a sign of the times, too. These days, Flynn said, 90% of trading is done electronically.
Only one CME pit — for Eurodollar options — will remain open.
“Computers don’t take risks to make a trade happen,” Flynn said. “The trading players in the Eurodollar pit still do, and that’s what’s keeping them hanging on when everyone else has gone to the wayside.”