Stock Exchange

There is something a little romantic about stock exchanges.  Something a little bit like church.  Now, I won’t go further and start equating people’s love and admiration of money to the love and admiration of their chosen god.  That would only lead to trouble, and well, frankly, that line is a bit easy to follow all on your own, isn’t it? Walking into a Stock Exchange is like walking through any other magnificent building, whether it is Westminster Abbey or it is Grand Central Station or it is the Louvre.  Immediately, something comes over your body.   The space around you is filled with intent.  The environment may be quiet and it may be calm in some instances but there is an energy behind it, a humming of purpose and work.

I have been to the New York Stock Exchange and watched the closing bell button be pushed and I have worked in an institution where one of the old school trading booths found a home.  So, when my job sent me to the Madrid Stock Exchange last week, I was kinda excited.  Of course, I kept this under wraps because I try not to come across as the person that gets excited about visiting stock exchanges or, for example, acts like Bono is calling me when it is really an NPR reporter.  I’m blowing my cover here, aren’t I?  Well, pretty sure I never put the cat in the bag in the first place.

The Madrid Stock Exchange was more beautiful and more quiet than I expected.  Not too much security going on, although they do take all your details and do run your bag through a scanner.  And not too much activity going on either, aside from the tv networks stationed around the trading floor or workers in offices out of sight.

In fact, the CNBC correspondent told me that, mostly, it is just visitors who are on the floor – or those who have an ‘in’ and like to spend time there.  For example, the group of three older men in beautiful tailored suits simply passing time with a good conversation, their canes resting on the carved railing beside them.  They looked like regulars at a bar, like they met on certain days in this place with a view of the electronic board.  I did not see them glance at it.