Being a graduate student in commodity markets, visiting the Chicago Board of Trade was almost a pilgrimage of sorts to the heart of the action.  Rushing down to LaSalle street, wanting to make sure that I had a good seat to watch the opening bell, my mouth dropped when I saw the iconic building sitting before me, with Ceres, the Roman goddess of Agriculture firmly planted at the top of the iconic building that screams capitalism and commerce around the world.  This was, this is, the heart of the worlds grain trade and it has held that title for over a century.  This is where fortunes are gained and lost.  This is where billions, no, trillions of dollars in commerce happen, pricing grains from Minot to Muscat.

Walking into the building and pushing the button to the viewing room and museum, I am hoping that I beat the crowds - it was about eight-thirty in the morning.

The museum had stories of the old bucket shops, one of the early bells and other paraphenalia.  I was enngrossed.  Walking into the viewing room, I was prepared to elbow myway to the front of the pack of people….

There were four of us that day to watch the opening.

Apparently, the heart of capitalism isn’t that fun for most people to watch, but I’m not most people.

I swear I could see the runners and traders streatching and running in place, some wearing boxing gloves to and going to town on their sparing partners, getting ready for the day.

OK, that was all a lie - but you could sense the building anticipation as more and more traders arrived and worked the phones, shuffled through paper, and looked at their screens.  There was also a fair number of them casually visiting on the floor - like kids at school at recess.

As nine-thirty approached, you could sense the tension mount down below.  More and more eyes turned to the clock.  People started filling the pits, reading through their orders, reading their hand held computers (novelties in 1999), taking the last minute phone calls from the edge of the pit.

“Ding! Ding! Ding!”

The opening bell sounded and it seemed like all hell broke loose.  There was screaming and shouting, hands were flying through the air, people were jockeying for position within the pits, the day traders (those trading for their own accounts and trying to get a ¼ of a cent on each trade) and the floor brokers trading millions of bushels for the big trading firms each jostling for spots on the floor.

It was choas.

But it was organized choas.  Like ants in a very organized colony, you could see the movements made sense.  You had the people around the corners taking phone calls, and strategizing, you had the people in the pit trading back and forth, you had the runners taking orders from the people on the phone and getting them to the people in the pits, you had people resting on the outside of the pit - drinking their Diet Cokes and coffees, getting ready to head back into the mealstrom.  On a raised platform, there were the spotters and the regulators, checking to report on prices and making sure that things worked fairly and accurately.

Somehow, this system just worked.  And it worked very, very well.

This is the heart beat of the world grain trade, and I watched for an hour as the board ticked higher and lower.

But the city still beckoned.