Trading room at the Freeman School of Business in New Orleans, LA.

The notion of "trading room" (sometimes used as a synonym of "trading floor") is widely used in financial markets to refer to the office space where market activities are concentrated in banks or brokerage houses. Financial trading rooms often consists of open-space large offices where financial workers (often referred to as "traders") monitor the markets, develop financial products, or engage into trading activities with other counterparties (through the telephone or through electronic interfaces). Contemporary trading rooms are highly technological spaces. The different trading or sales desks are equipped with financial data technologies such as the ones provided by companies such as Bloomberg or Reuters.

Trading rooms are getting increasingly large. For example, JPMorgan plans to have six 60,000 sq ft (5,600 m²) trading floors in its new downtown Manhattan building. This is despite the fact that the firm's plot of land is only 32,000 sq ft (3,000 m²). The trading floors will thus need to be cantilevered, and JPMorgan's willingness to build such a complicated building is indicative of the importance of large trading floors.^[1] Most major investment banking trading floors are in metropolitan city centres (Manhattan, the City of London, Canary Wharf and Central, Hong Kong), but the drive to build large as well as the prevalence of electronic communication has led to some huge trading floors being built in suburban settings, such as the 100,000-square-foot trading rooms of RBS and UBS in Stamford, Connecticut.

Trading rooms are also used in the sports gambling sector. The term is often used to refer to the liabilities and odds setting departments of bookmakers where liabilities are managed and odds are adjusted. Examples include internet bookmakers based in the Caribbean and also legal bookmaking operations in the United Kingdom such as William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral which operate trading rooms to manage their risk. The growth of betting exchanges such as Betfair has also led to the emergence of "trading rooms" designed for professional gamblers. (reference: Racing Post newspaper 19/7/07) The first such establishment was opened in Edinburgh in 2003 but later folded. Professional gamblers typically pay a daily "seat" fee of around £30 per day for the use of IT facilities and sports satellite feeds used for betting purposes. Today there are eight such trading rooms across the UK, with two based in London - one in Highgate and one in Canary Wharf.

[edit] References

1. ^ JPMorgan Trading Floors - Blot On The Landscape ? :: Business News :: Here Is The City News :: The Latest Business & Financial Markets News And Views