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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (13198)	7/31/1998 11:26:00 PM
From: Jon Koplik	Respond to of 152472

To all - the following O.T. thing is of possible interest to those watching "seat" prices at futures exchanges start their long descent (toward zero (?)). MOST CBT TRADERS UPBEAT ON ELECTRONIC TRADE; LINE UP FOR PROJECT A By Suzanne Cosgrove and Alyce Andres CHICAGO (MktNews) - Chicago Board of Trade members interviewed this week were generally optimistic about the exchange's path to change after the CBT board earlier this week approved daytime electronic trading of financial futures concurrent with open outcry. The CBT's board of directors voted in favor of the controversial side-by-side trading plan 20-to-1 on Tuesday, to begin Sept. 28, pending membership and Commodity Futures Trading Commission approval. A member vote on the issue is slated for Aug. 18. At a members-only meeting held Wednesday, CBT Chairman Patrick Arbor reiterated a theme heard again and again in recent weeks, one source said. That is, "we have the best open outcry markets in the world ... but we need to protect our products" by also offering electronic trading, he said. In addition, Arbor touted the concept of a more efficient and "paperless" trading floor, traders said. The mid-week meeting was attended by only about 100 members, divided between those with commodity and financial trading interests, said sources. The prospect of electronic trading will have a much more immediate impact on financial futures traders. Treasury futures in particular face a competitive threat to market share from Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor, in conjunction with the New York Cotton Exchange, is planning to offer Treasury futures via electronic screens during the day. The proposal to start the Cantor Financial Futures Exchange is still under consideration by the CFTC. The CBT's electronic alternative is its Project A system, currently operated after regular pit trading hours, with 300 workstations up and running as of mid-June. During the month of June, Project A set a monthly volume record of 1,248,253 contracts, up 54.2% from May. But total CBT volume for all contracts totaled 25,782,612 in June. Increasingly, CBT financial traders have either taken Project A eight-hour certification classes or are signed up for upcoming sessions. Project A trainers staffers say the exchange has added classes, but demand now is extremely heavy, especially among local and firm members. One year ago, an average of 12 traders per week were certified for Project A, but that has grown to some 65 a week, an education staffer said. Project A instructors also conduct classes about once a month in New York, and have established conference sessions with London. But there is a waiting list. The next available Project A training sessions offered exclusively for members are Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, education department sources said. A CBT bond clerk told Market News he had to wait until mid-September to get in. Arbor reportedly told members Wednesday Project A has a transaction capacity of 1.8 trades per second, but will be upgraded to 4.6 trades per second by December. Speed of transactions should pick up to by as much as 30 to 40 trades per second by July 1999 when the CBT finalizes its link with Eurex, an entity of the German DTB, Arbor reportedly said, which "probably can handle the volume." A CBT spokesman indicated Project A capacity estimates were given for members only. He would neither confirm nor deny the figures. Project A system upgrades and other costs associated with electronic trading are expected to be costly, with some traders estimating the bill at between $25 million to $35 million. Sources said the expense is expected to be borne by members through the CBT's Ceres partnership overseeing Project A.--Suzanne Cosgrove and Alyce Andres, 312-214-3336; email: cosgrove@mktnews.com. 16:04 EDT 07/31 c 1998 Market News Service, Inc. This was taken (lifted? stolen?) from "the economeister," which I highly recommend to those wanting to waste even more of their time reading stuff. URL for economeister is economeister.com Jon.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (13198)	8/1/1998 12:18:00 PM
From: Drew Williams	Respond to of 152472

Could you explain what you meant in your recent posts about the "coal face"? I assume this refers to manual labor, but with you I always have to allow for the possibility of it being some curious makeup used in a secret KIWI / Maori fertility ritual. (I have this image of you and thousands of other anti-nuke demonstrators showing up to greet Maddy Albright in blackface. <g>) BTW, we do know something about coal here in Pennsylvania. The events described in The Molly Maquires (film starred Sean Connery) happened about an hour's drive from here.