In May, Liffe announced that it planned to bring forward the introduction of electronic trading by six months, and on 9 June, at an extraordinary general meeting, Liffe’s members were asked to vote on the proposed changes They approved them by a resounding majority of 98 per cent. Liffe chairman Jack Wigglesworth could give no definitive answer to questions from the floor asking whether Liffe would try to retain open outcry for some contracts. “The market will vote with its feet,” he said.The market has certainly voted with its feet in terms of Liffe shares, which have fallen in value by up to 75 per cent. Shares in Liffe give trading rights on the floor, and their plummeting price is a clear signal that many believe the best days of the exchange are over. The bleak reality for Liffe’s open outcry traders is that they must now adapt or die. The main problem is that trading on a screen requires a considerably greater knowledge of how a market works than does open outcry, and as one Liffe insider points out: “It’s probably fair to say that most traders on the Liffe floor don’t really know what they’re trading.
They could be trading sausages.”"Basically most of them are buggered,” says Mattimoe. “The trouble for a lot of the traders is that their only skill is in the execution of open outcry trading They don’t know anything about markets. They know the basic rudiments of it, but they don’t know why the markets go up or down. They just react to the order flow.”For David Kyte, the answer lies in “re-education”. He has already learnt how to trade on a screen, but others are clinging on to their old skills and talk about trading oil at the International Petroleum Exchange, where open outcry still flourishes for the moment. According to one trader, “a quarter will start trading on computer, a quarter will go back to driving cabs, a quarter will be out of work and a quarter will retire”.”People get comfortable with their environment, but you have to change,” says David Kyte “I think it’s only a question of time. There’ll be problems with computers – mine’s just frozen now as I’m talking to you – but when it does work, it’s quicker and it’s better.
Open outcry was a great concept, it is a great concept, but we progress.”At the beginning of October last year, the City of London Corporation unveiled a new statue. Cast in bronze by the sculptor Stephen Melton, it depicted a futures trader in a striped jacket, his tie casually loosened, talking into his mobile phone. It cost pounds 40,000 and stands on the corner of Cannon Street and Walbrook, just a couple of hundred yards from the main Liffe building. It was intended as a celebration of the City’s most colourful characters, but already it is taking on the air of a memorial.
“Here lies the Unknown Trader – we will remember him.”Or as Gary puts it: “It was good for a while, but you move on, you know what I mean?”. STARTING FROM next Monday I shall be away for three weeks, and already the carpentry unit in my workshop is hammering away at the large hand-carved sign reading “Miles Kington is away on holiday” which it is customary for columnists to hang outside their houses during their absence. However, I have noticed that this tends to lead to a rash of breaking and entering during my absence, so this time I shall leave a different sign behind, saying: “Miles Kington may not be writing his column at this moment, but he is certainly at home, yes sirree, he is standing behind the front door with a poker behind his back ready to deal with thieves, so go next door and ransack them, they have a really nice collection of china…”
You hear strange stories about people going away on holiday and being burgled. One story I am often told is that burglars will mingle with people flying out from a major airport and make a note of their home addresses from their luggage labels. It stands to reason that if they are flying out from Heathrow, their home will be unattended for a while, and safe for burgling. To combat this, I always put false labels on my luggage until I get to my destination, so that if a burglar is reading my “home address”, it is not my home address at all.
In fact, I usually use the address of my brother in Bristol.(The only time this backfired was when I lost all my luggage abroad at Athens Airport, and it was eventually returned by the airline, to my brother in Bristol He claimed he never had it delivered to him I don’t believe him. I believe he still has all my holiday clothes and favourite after- shave to this day. Well, I suppose it helps to compensate for all those times the burglars have read my labels and gone round to burgle his house…)Another strange story I once heard was from a man living in Chelsea. He claimed that the police at the local police station were not always squeaky clean, and for this very reason he never went round, as so many people did, and told them that he was going away on holiday so that they could keep an eye on his house.”It is a depressing but true fact,” he told me, “that more burglaries take place among people who have told the police they are going away than among those who haven’t told them.