means you’re selling. For means you’re buying. All bids are made “price for size.” All offers are made “size at price.” Price increments come in arithmetically boggling one-sixteenths of a dollar—6.25 cents. This is called a “teenie” on the floor. “Twenty-five and three teenies for twenty.” “Ten at twenty-five and five teenies.” The teenies inject an odd note of juvenility into the baritone roars. One expects “itsy-bitsies” and “itty-bitties” to pop out next. Meanwhile, the specialist is “maintaining a fair and orderly market,” which basically means keeping middle-aged men from hitting each other. And the specialist is also acting as a “market maker,” which is a role analogous to what Dad plays when the kids are running a lemonade stand on the front sidewalk. If there are too many sellers of a specialist’s stock and not enough buyers, the specialist is expected to “make a market” by buying some of the stock for his own account. If there are too many buyers and not enough sellers, he is expected to sell some of the stock he holds in inventory—the NYSE equivalent of going inside to squeeze more lemons. (Somehow, specialist brokers make out better on this than Dad does.) What about the floor trader who went to the specialist’s post several paragraphs ago? He’s gone. Half a dozen trades can be made in the time it takes to read about one. “Take it.” “Sold.” A large chunk of money has just changed hands without lawyers, contracts, notary publics, or even handshakes. The two traders put their heads together for a moment, jotting on order forms. “I am . . .” One names his brokerage and gives his NYSE badge number. “I am . . .” The other does the same. And we are . . . able to buy the beach house. Or we should start to look for a second job. I was interviewing one of the floor brokers, whom I’ll call David, or, rather, I was trying to interview him. Besides hollering in teenie language, brokers are consulting their beepers, using the banks of telephones on the trading floor, and shouting into cell phones. A good broker—and David is one—can do all four
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