For decades there was a standard image of the New York Stock Exchange trading floor that had guys in cheesy “barber” jackets (my term) clutching pads of paper and buying and selling stocks like crazy men. They would gather in frantic circles, screaming at each other and communicating with mysterious hand signals, while jotting down orders on the pad. This image is captured perfectly in a scene in the movie “Trading Places.”
But I’ve noticed these days, from current images of the NYSE trading floor on the news, that scenes like the one in TP are nowhere to be found. Have they become a thing of the past?