To: Amelia Carhartt who wrote (63598 ) 5/12/2010 10:01:28 PM From: TobagoJack 3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 218016 just in in-trayplayer 1: TJ noted:and listen zerohedge.com either primal fear or festive horse race, per trading pit during the crash that didn't really happen, yet _____________________ I think that this site has better quality, and the zerohedge site froze up halfway through:archive.org ____________________ Oh my, does this bring back memories. I was on the bond desk for a few years in the late 80's, and we had a guy down in the pit in Chicago giving us color on what was going on in the bond pit. This guy at the link gives us color on what was going on in the S&P futures pit last Thursday during the crash. (and I have to admit, he's pretty good). This only happened a very few times, but it is like yesterday, with October 1987 being the most clear memory, assuming my memory is correct. Yes, I was on the Government Bond Desk in October of 1987 when the market crashed. The bond desk was dead that morning, as everyone was sitting around just staring at the screens following the equity markets. The technology back then was much more antiquated, and futures was way ahead of the cash market. Bob kept translating what the Dow would roughly be trading at at that point in time given where S&P Futures were trading. For some reason, I recall we were paying attention to lumber, which was also collapsing. But then, around lunch time, the government securities markets started going nuts. At around 1 pm, Tony G (and Bobby D, was that his name?) started screaming to our 10-Year trader, "Tom, offer $50 million 10-years!" He named a price. "your done!" Two minutes later, the same thing happened. Two minutes after that, it happened again. Tom had sold 150 million and covered around 30. Then Bobby D asked for another offer of $50 million (the buyer was Paul Tudor Jones)...and Tom yelled, "just tell me how many he fxxxxin wants in total, or I'm not selling him any more!" Bobby D told him this was the last $50. Tom offered and was filled. So Tom was short about $170 million. And the market just started to rise. Paul's fund was only around $150 million at that time. And Paul wasn't just buying from us and he wasn't just buying 10-year Treasuries. He saw before everyone else that the Fed was going to initiate the Greenspan put. And he was front running the Fed. The entire yield curve started to move down. Futures started to go nuts such as in this mp3. Our sales guys started screaming at us, almost all buyers and no sellers, and all pissed off because our offers were so damn high. but they needed to be b/c there were no sellers. I may be wrong, but if I recall correctly, Paul Tudor Jones was up over 90% for the month. And while he made a ton of money being short the stock market the weekend before the crash, he supposedly made even more money by covering on Monday and going massively, massively long the bond market - especially relative to the size of his fund. I should check with Paul and see if my memory is correct. There were a couple of other short-term moments like that, but only lasted 15 minutes or so whereas Monday, October 19th 1987 lasted all day long.... Those adrenelin rushes were far and few between, but we'd have a guy like that screaming what was going on in Chicago, our sales guys would be screaming at us for offers or bids and pissed that we'd widen our spreads, and it was jut mayhem. No adrenlin rushes like that anymore.....roller coasters are child's play..... Bob - feel free to correct a memory from nearly 23 years ago.Player Bob: You have a good memory.