Cat House

[Porgie Tirebiter]

The reason the CME Group is quietly conquering the world is due to the that they have morphed from a set of pits full of open outcry traders to offering space in data centers which are interconnected with each other by dedicated micro-wave network.

Customers pay a premium to locate their equipment closer to the main market servers. (This is withing the same building! Apparently even with information moving at the speed of light there is an advantage in being feet and yards closer.) They also pay a premium for access to better cooling. (It helps the machines run faster).

Watch Rick Santulli on CNBC. He reports from the trading floor at the CME. Note that the traders pretty much just mill around without much to do. That trading floor's days are numbered.

http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/colocation/co-location-services.html