One NY commods trader sees the good life after pit
After Chris Scheid graduated from Queens’ Richmond Hill high school in 1982, he landed a lowly job in Manhattan as a futures exchange floor runner thanks to the brother of his Boy Scout troop den mother.
“Ninety-eight percent of the people on the floor got their job because they knew somebody,” he told Reuters after a day of trading in the frozen concentrated orange juice market. “I started at the bottom.”
Scheid, 43, learned the ropes and struck it big trading agricultural commodities like frozen concentrated orange juice, coffee, sugar, cocoa and cotton. But now, after 2-1/2 decades of yelling orders and flapping hands to buy and sell futures, he must change careers when more than a century of agricultural commodities futures trading in New York ends on March 3.
The IntercontinentalExchange’s ICE Futures US, which bought the NYBOT last year, will cease open outcry trading of all futures contracts and become wholly electronic.
Scheid will keep his hand in the market by trading orange juice options — the FCOJ options ring is not closing cash advance now. He is investing in a southern cooking-themed restaurant and an auction company. There is also a thriving antique business.
Hoarse from years of barking at each other, dozens of traders and brokers from New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey are assessing their skills. It will be tough to find a job that matches floor trading for its combination of great pay and a big adrenaline rush.
INTO THE PIT
Scheid’s story of a young man with a working class background carving out a career without the benefit of college is hardly unique on commodity exchanges in New York, Chicago or London.