Every time there is a bad day on Wall Street -- like Monday -- newspapers tend to run a photo of a trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange looking grim and exhausted. This is what I call the Generic Trader Photo.
Today, we did a variation of that, running a photo of a trader in the pits of the Chicago Board of Trade. USA Today had a trader rubbing his face at the NYSE. The New York Times had a similar photo ..... a guy holding his head in his hand.
Occasionally, when the Asian markets tank, we have a picture of a trader on the Japanese stock exchange doing the same thing. When I was business editor, I used to joke that I kept a wire photo in my top drawer from the Tokyo Stock Exchange of a manic trader that I would pull out and run any time there was a big move in the Nikkei, because the picture was good for all occasions.
I guess I don't have a real problem with these types of pictures, but guess what? Send a photographer down to the floor of the NYSE or the CBOT on any given day, and you can get a picture of jubilation and despair. That's because these are very stressful places filled with jubilation and angst depending on who made what bets on stocks and commodities.
Eventually -- and I don't know if we're talking 10 or 20 years -- those pictures will probably go away if (but more likely when) computerized trading replaces the traders on the floor of all these exchanges. You can get a glimpse of this when CNBC reports on what's happening at the NASDAQ.
The reporter stands in front of a big wall showing the latest prices of major stocks. Certainly it's not as dramatic as the face of a floor trader glumly looking at a tumbling market.
Comments
There's no "one pic fits all" for angst
Wed, 10/01/2008 - 14:04 — Debrah"......I used to joke that I kept a wire photo in my top drawer from the Tokyo Stock Exchange of a manic trader that I would pull out and run any time there was a big move in the Nikkei, because the picture was good for all occasions."
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You haven't seen mania until you've seen a Tokyo businessman running for the Shinkansen to get out of town after a long week in his Otemachi cubicle.
Each episode of misery has its own unique patina.
None should fill in for another.
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By the way, on the topic of everything becoming computerized sooner or later, we need a report and research on what the daily grind and endless hours on the computer are doing to your eyes.
That's one of the latest topics.
If anyone hasn't experienced the effects this can have on your eyes, then you probably aren't spending lots of time on the computer.