A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moscow Stock Exchange, from Anatoly Veltman
I was reminded of a funny story the other day. Back in the "open outcry trading" 1998-2000 years, I was running Foreign Broker desk for Refco in Moscow, and got Moscow Stock Exchange interested in Dow futures. So they started trading a daily-settled contract, based on what price the Dow will end up in NY. The funny part was that their closing bell would basically coincide with NY opening bell. So my open arbline to CBT Dow futures pit would do so much business in early Chicago trade, that it was setting tone to NYSE open!! It was so hilarious to listen to CNBC anchors calling the 9.30am opening direction, adding fair value, etc - while I was fully aware that I just liquidated a few hundred lots "at the market" in thin Chicago pre-open, on behalf of a hapless Russian daytrader due to his Russian clearing house end-of-day margin call…