Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: Wall Street to Y’all Street

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SALT LAKE CITY — Every half hour we tell you what’s happening on Wall Street. Home of the New York Stock Exchange, where you’d believe traders are frantically screaming “Buy! Sell!” Like in that Eddie Murphy movie, “Trading Places.”

 

Wait. Did I ever tell you I was one of those traders? I rented a seat on the New York Futures Exchange, got certified, learned all the wiggly hand signals and screamed “Buy! Sell!”

And what I learned was that a lot of these guys had hemorrhoids from standing still in a sea of stress all day. Then a couple of cases of tuberculosis popped up on the floor and with all these guys screaming and spitting at each other; I decided to sell! Sell my seat and get outta there. It wasn’t for me. I lost a few hundred bucks. But understood completely when this savage form of capitalism was replaced by electronic trading.

Now we tell you what’s happening on Wall Street each half hour. But much of it’s actually happening at computer farms in Kansas, in Jersey City and increasingly — at office buildings in Dallas. 

Texas is luring the financial industry south with perks like low tax rates, cheaper mansions, and less traffic than New York. JP Morgan Chase, the biggest bank in the country, now has more employees in Texas than in New York. So don’t be surprised when we start calling the financial markets the same thing they do in Texas.

Instead of Wall Street — where the industry used to be, they’re calling the markets Y’all Street. Times change.

Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X. 

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