The Coming Launch of Socrates
QUESTION: Marty,
Back in 2015 when they closed the Chicago MERC after 167 years, you did a piece about how flashing screens do not provide the same “feel” as tape watching and floor trading. You also mentioned in that piece that “after Socrates, you will recreate something you always wanted to do” in relation to bringing “feel” back into trading.
My question is; given all the directions you are being pulled- is this still something you aspire to undertake?
I grew up tape watching, and despise blinking screens…it’s a lost art and would welcome anything you might undertake in this area.
Rw
ANSWER: Absolutely. We are getting ready for the first launch very soon. The intention is to expand the system to intraday. We are in negotiations with a data-provider to make the system live intraday with reversals and timing on an hourly basis. Trust me. It has been this initial launch that has been delayed by banks changing rules causing us to have to re-write the payment systems three times. Then we have completely different rules for outside North America so it required then setting up another whole new payment system. Then we have been having to set up yet a third for China. This has all been driven by this Hunt for Taxes.
It will be that intraday version that will be sound. Also in Phase-Two of our launch, we will be looking at providing a download version that will link back into our system so you can just talk to it and it will answer. We just cannot do that level of sophistication over the internet.
