Option Queen Letter By the Option Royals Jeanette Young , CFP ® , CFTe, CMT, M.S. 4305 Pointe Gate Drive Livingston, New Jersey 07039 www.OptnQueen.com [email protected]April 17, 2016 NEWS FLASH: we have negative interest rates in many investment accounts today. True they are not called negative interest rates but rather inactivity fees. These are, fees assessed on accounts with cash deposits that have not had trades for a given period of time. An inactivity fee = negative interest rates. You would think that money sitting in a money market account, adding to a brokerage firm’s book, would pay interest, right? No, you are charged a fee if you are not actively investing or trading. It’s all about how you name the asset. So parking fees are assessed; not all firms have them but many do. Sadly, the NYMEX and COMEX trading floors, the last commodity trading floors open in New York City, will close by the end of 2016. The NYBOT, before it was acquired by ICE, moved to the One North End Avenue location in 2003 after the NYBOT trading floor, at Four World Trade Center, was destroyed by the 9/11 attack. NYMEX had moved to this space years earlier to accommodate a need for more room. NYBOT’s move to One North End Avenue rejoined the commodities traded on NYMEX and NYBOT to a massive, common floor. NYBOT occupied the left side of the seventh floor at North End Avenue adjacent the COMEX on the right. Our pits were different from the COMEX in that we relied on a halo of screens circling the outer edges of the ring for trade information, while the COMEX depended on electronic wall boards. Downstairs, energy and platinum were traded on the third floor with escalators linking the different products. . To us trading animal pit traders, food was an important part of our day, naturally. Various dining options were available on the seventh and third floors with formal dining on the tenth floor, fitted with a terrace overlooking the New Jersey skyline. Today, what is left of the trading pits is confined to a portion of the building’s third floor. Food, while still available, is not quite what it was. Traders have been relegated to local restaurants and, of course, food trucks. There was a time when increased volume in a particular pit on the trading floor would draw in traders from surrounding rings as they vied to “get a piece of the action” in what can at best be described as total mayhem. Ah those were the days: ugly jackets, course traders, paper stroon floors and a bee-hive of activity. While today this is all gone, it is not forgotten: getting spurred…….laughing, and enjoying the craziness of trading, both bad days and good days alike. Remembering, even if there was a devastating day, the sun would come up tomorrow…..next trade!
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