Things in the Sky

So, on Tuesday my college’s finance group went down to New York, and perhaps the highlight of the day was a tour of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Why is this important for an aviation blog? Well, NYMEX is one of the places crude oil is traded.

Unfortunately, photography wasn’t allowed. The best I could do is get this picture of the sign outside, and I even got yelled at for that!

Our tour guide was really informative, and I learned a great deal about commodities trading. What really impressed me was the hand signals traders use on the floor – it was pretty interesting to see in action. Unfortunatley, NYMEX (and other exchanges) aren’t as exciting to viewers as they once were. Much more trading is done electronically these days, so the trading floor is a bit quiter. The only busy area was where options for oil were traded. Apparently, options are still mainly traded through the traditional method since they’re more complex.

Anyway, it was certainly an interesting experience!