Working at risk: An ethnography of making markets in Chicago.

摘要

This dissertation examines the role of market makers in making markets for options and futures on Chicago's derivatives exchanges. Recent institutional and technological changes in the ways that financial products are traded have given rise to the possibility of markets without market makers, raising the question of how these developments alter the relationships between market participants, and the effects of those alterations. This dissertation draws upon ethnographic fieldwork with a group of market makers in options and in futures trading across Chicago's derivatives exchanges. The research methods include interviews and participant observation, as well as gathering secondary data. I address first changes in the institutional setting of trade, drawing out the historical context of the acquisition of the Chicago Board of Trade by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, looking at how the market itself is made. I then turn to the ways in which market makers experience their participation in their markets, and find that they confront four principal challenges. The first challenge is that of maintaining behavioral standards within a market. The second challenge is that of mastering the skills required to manage risk. The third challenge is that of self-management. The final challenge is that of changing technology, whether on the trading floor or in an electronic system. I found that markets do not arise effortlessly, but are instead the outcome of a process of ongoing effort, negotiation and re-negotiation on the part of participants.