ON-LINE TRADING LESSON
Trading futures and options involves risk and is not suitable for everyone. 

On-Line Trading Lessons

    Courtesy of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange

Lesson 9 -- Who's Who

Who’s who in and around the trading pit?

All the traders in the pits are members of the CME. They may be private speculators who trade for their own profit. Or they may be floor brokers who act as agents for customers of brokerage firms.

Dividing the trading floors (one downstairs and one upstairs) into sections are rows of workstations or desks. This is where orders are called into the brokerage firms from customers.

Different colored jackets help to identify all the people on the CME trading floor. Here’s how you identify who’s who:

Red jackets are worn by members or brokers of the CME who trade in the pits. A floor broker refers to an Exchange member who executes orders for the accounts of one or more clearing member and their customers. A local or floor trader is a member who executes trades for his own account or for a clearing firm account. 

Runners and phone clerks wear gold jackets. They are employees of the brokerage firm members or individual members. A runner’s responsibility is to get the customer’s order to the appropriate broker in the correct pit as soon as possible. Filled orders need to also be returned to the firm’s desk for confirmation to the customer. The runners job is an important one because it provides the vital link between the customer and the execution of his order by the broker in the trading pit.

Out-trade clerks wear pale green jackets. They are employees of the brokerage firms and CME members. They're responsible for helping to resolve discrepancies in trades from the previous day each morning before the start of regular trading hours.

Market reporters wear light blue jackets. A market reporter is a trained pit observer employed by the CME. They are responsible for reporting the prices of pit transactions and entering the information into the CME’s computerized price reporting system. This price information is then displayed on the price quotation boards on the trading floor and transmitted to investors and brokers around the world via wire services and quotation vendors.

Orange jackets are worn by members of the CME who may only trade emerging market futures and options like the Mexican peso or Brazilian real.


One more thing. The CME has different types of exchange memberships that determine which futures and options contracts can be traded. A CME membership entitles its owner to trade every contract the CME offers. An IMM (International Monetary Market) membership allows its owner to trade everything but agricultural commodities.

An IOM (Index and Options Market) permits its owner to trade lumber as well as all equity index futures and all options contracts traded. A GEM (Growth and Emerging Markets) membership entitles its owner to trade emerging market products.

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