Trading floors across institutions are standardized and interchangeable.
Evidence
No differences from GB1—with regard to the trading systems used (EBS and Reuters), the structure of dealing conversations, the face-to-screen setting, the orientation to the market, and other results described in this article—were discerned. This corresponds to traders’ assertions that trading floors within the global circuit of high-volume trading institutions are identical, thereby making it possible for traders to fly from one city to another and immediately start trading there. — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 58
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to finance ethnography literature on the placelessness and standardization of screen-based trading (e.g., Knorr Cetina’s microstructures work).
- QUESTION: Worth pursuing: what exactly produces this interchangeability — technological standardization, tacit normative codes, or both?