London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange - The Language of LIFFE

The Language of LIFFE

The exchange floor was an extremely noisy place with Phone Brokers and Pit Traders shouting instructions to each other and Exchange Officials overseeing their conduct and confirming trades. Exchange members (Banks and Brokers) would pay a premium to have a booth position close to the trading pits to enable slightly easier communication with their pit traders. However the most common form of communication was via hand signals, not too dissimilar to tic-tac that a bookmaker would use at a racecourse. Contract prices were signalled with the hand held away from the body with the palm of the hand facing away meaning to sell and the palm of the hand facing towards oneself meaning to buy. Contract quantities were communicated with the hand touching the body with individual units displayed on the chin, tens of units on the forehead, hundreds and thousands of units on the forearm again with the hand facing away meaning to sell and towards oneself to buy. A project to record the hand signal language of the trading pit is currently being compiled at Tradingpithistory.com LIFFE Hand Signals