Educational Media Reviews Online

Floored presents a retrospective snapshot of the Chicago open out-cry trading pits, where fortunes are storied to have been made and lost in minutes and winning was simply a matter of not losing. Since most traders gambled their own money, houses were lost, marriages were destroyed, drugs and alcohol problems ran rampant, and suicides weren't exactly uncommon. Yet there is a fascinating sense of nostalgia amongst the myriad floor traders for their thrilling, high-intensity glory days. And it is made all to clear in their seemingly never-ending series of tales of trading bravado, told from between puffs from cigars, that to be a good floor trader, you needed to be loud and nervy. Apparently, it also often helped to be a jerk, willing to literally push people around or spit in their eye.

Unfortunately, those qualities that made for success in the pits do not translate well to the world of computer trading, as illustrated by a handful of floor traders who, for a variety of reasons, are either very unwilling or unable to make the transition. Those who have successfully migrated are more of a neurotic office worker breed, frantically clicking through a seemingly nonsensical interface... and instead of cigars, they smoke cigarettes.

Though it has its endearing moments as an oral history, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where this film might be of use in the academic environment. It provides an accurate and concise introduction to future exchanges, but its potential benefit in high school economics classes is nullified by the gratuitous swearing of one particular retired, long-winded trader (and by gratuitous, I mean constant, unending, merciless, and distracting... and I am usually one to celebrate the profane). This is truly unfortunate, because this particular character is much more of a show pony than a source of a unique or enlightening perspective.