|  APR 1986

She flashes signals from the pit at CBT by Phyllis Brock

She flashes signals from the pit at CBT by Phyllis Brock At precisely 8:00 a.m. Central Time a buzzer sounds and the financial floor of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBT) bursts into life. Runners scurry about carrying messages between traders, brokers and clerks. A crescendo of sound rises and falls as voices blend into an incomprehensible roar. Accompanying the roar, raised hands flash a blur of signals. People wearing brightly colored jackets and large badges for identification swirl about. Another day of trading has begun. Shouting at the top of her lungs to attract the attention of a telephone clerk, Marie Pawlyk frantically flashes hand signals from the top step of the Treasury Bond (T-Bond) pit. A slim blond with one brown eye and one green eye, Pawlyk, a native of Chicago, calls herself a broker's clerk. Her job consists of keeping track of the market while placing and remembering trades for the three brokers who are her employers. If the telephone clerk doesn't acknowledge her signals, Pawlyk will have to send a runner over with her order. Mistakes are costly and she has a reputation for making very few of them.

by Phyllis Brock