In the spirit of April Fools' Day we are sharing some of the best trading floor pranks of all time.
"Every joke was invented down there," a retired NYSE specialist told Business Insider.
The thing is the trading humor has subsided in recent years.
"Fortunately, or unfortunately, you don't see those pranks anymore," said another veteran trader.
He explained that in the past, traders played pranks on the floor to help everyone "blow off steam."
"You can't be running at 100 percent all the time," he said. "You need to break the tension and that's why on the floor, every floor, they'd have some sort of prank or joke."
Veteran traders both in New York and Chicago from the NYSE, CBOT, NYMEX and AMEX told us about some of the classic pranks and jokes they used to pull back in the day.
* If you have another trading floor prank, joke or story you would like to share, please send Julia an email at jlaroche@businessinsider.com.
If you tripped and fell at the NYSE, they'd make it look like a crime scene.
Location: NYSE
The prank: Back when the floor of the NYSE was super crowded if a guy would fall down, other floor brokers and specialists would draw a chalk outline around him.
A really long time ago, traders would launch cups of water at each other.
Location: NYSE
The Prank:"The old style trading posts had spring-loaded jump seats that the traders could pull down to sit and take a load off. Those days, they only traded two to three million shares a day, so there was plenty of downtime. The prank was to take a paper cup, fill it with water, and wedge it into the seat. The next sucker to pull the seat down launched this missile at himself - and got doused. Good clean (wet) fun!," the grandson of a NYSE trader told Business Insider.
A new broker at the American Stock Exchange would be given a fake stock to trade as part of their initiation.
Location: American Stock Exchange
The Prank: The entire AMEX floor would prank the newbie by giving them a fake stock to trade. The entire floor would be on it and prevent the new broker from getting their order executed until the stock ran up five points. Then the newbie's booth would make them sell it. The crowd would block the new broker from getting their order executed until the stock ran down five points.
"The broker would not know what's going on. Then, all of the sudden, a hand would reach in and grab his collar of his shirt and rip it off and the crowd would cheer and he would now be considered 'one of us,'" former AMEX broker "Groucho" said.
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