From Publishers Weekly
In this insightful volume, Lynn gives readers a glimpse into the world of the "Merc," or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a rough, gritty, action-packed scene dictated by money and testosterone—a place where women are outsiders. Lynn, an artistic type who never properly explains (and doesn't seem to know herself) why she wanted to prove herself in a place like the Merc, uses the stories of the many women she interviewed and heard stories of to illustrate how a man's success is easily measured in dollars, while a woman's success takes into account many complicated factors. The harassment, teasing, double standards, unfair practices and overall rough-and-tumble environment make for an exciting, fast-paced backdrop in which men are traders and women are wannabes, gold diggers and worse. The book's pace is good, the women's stories are sometimes downright riveting and this account reads like a novel. These women aren't heroines—most are in it for the money, and there is little in the way of happy endings or morals for the stories. But readers are treated to a skilled presentation of the sights, sounds and even smells of a world that few women—or men, for that matter—ever truly understand. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Lynn, a writer and a clerk at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the Merc), tells stories about the famous trading floor and the few women who flourish in that environment of bad behavior, extraordinary skill and instincts, breathtaking greed, and heroic courage. Futures trading focuses on taking risks, with unlimited potential for profit and staggering loss by debt-strapped players. Trading is a one-dimensional job in which money is put ahead of creative, intellectual, or emotional satisfaction, and nothing matters other than proving yourself in competition to make more money. Women learn to ignore foul language and cease to be intimidated by it, learn to ignore sexist comments and suggestions, and a few are very successful. The author tells us that futures trading is a secret-handshake society, which continues to be a testosterone-saturated world where there is no room for boys much less women. The winner is the one who dies with the most toys, and "winning" is what this business is all about. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review

“A swashbuckling adventure in the heart of Chicago that should not be missed . . . Cari Lynn takes you inside the crash-and-burn world of “the Merc,” a baptism by fire where the good old boys’ club is invaded by girls who—with humor, guts, and acumen—get even by getting rich.”
—Gail Evans, author of Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman and She Wins, You Win

“Leg the Spread is a great introduction to life in the Merc’s pits, in all its filthy, adrenaline-fueled glory. From Pork Bellies to polyester blazers, Ms. Lynn grabs you by the jowls and doesn’t let go. This book made my inner woman want to stand up on the top tier of the pit, jam some fat bastard with a bad trade, and scream, “Take that, you chauvinist jackass!”
—John Rolfe, author of Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle

“Cari Lynn’s vivid descriptions make you feel as if you’re right there with her in the frenzied melange of the trading pits. If you’re a woman considering a career anywhere near stocks and trading, this is one book you have to read first.”
—Lois P. Frankel, author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office


From the Inside Flap

In the Futures market, it’s all about minimizing risk and maximizing your wallet. Buying something gives you one leg—selling something gives you another—and if you’ve got two legs to stand on, that’s your spread. Anyone can make money by legging the spread, but if you’re a woman, you need something else: the presence, savvy, and stomach to run with the bulls and make your way in this ultimate boys club.

Welcome to the jungle.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (known in the financial world as “the Merc”) is the busiest Futures exchange in the world: a hair-raising, high-pressure den of iniquity with enough yelling, bullying, and mayhem to rattle even the toughest of hardball commodities traders. And if you’re a woman, the Merc can be the seventh circle of hell, given the sexual harassment, verbal vulgarity, and blatant condescension that comes with the turf. But that fact hasn’t stopped a handful of talented and determined women from crashing the frat party of the Merc and making millions while they’re at it.
When Cari Lynn first ventured onto the floor of the Merc in early 2000, she did so because she, like so many others, was riveted by the amount of money that could be made through trading with seemingly little effort. But she quickly discovered that only a handful of females have ever made it into the trading pits—a testosterone-saturated world where the men are often monsters and there’s no room for boys, let alone women. Leg the Spread is the highly entertaining account of Lynn’s years as a clerk at the Merc, a job that taught her not only the cutthroat rules of engagement, but just how far both men and women will go when they stand to win or lose everything in the blink of an eye.
From learning the fast-moving art of “arb”—the hand signals used to generate trades—to learning to shout over the roar of the pits, Leg the Spread follows Lynn as she discovers the rush of high-stakes moneymaking, and herself. Along the way, she shares the stories of the Merc’s women traders, a motley crew of personalities who show her how to play the game. From Natalie, who bares her midriff and records her trades with a pink pom-pom pen, but is known to throw a punch to stand her ground, to Bev, who hustles billions of dollars in contracts every day and whose sway over the market is so great that major players like Goldman Sachs refuse to trade if she’s not in the pit, Lynn provides a riveting portrait of what it takes to prove your moxie daily in the midst of this ultimate men’s club.
Packed with jaw-dropping stories of bad behavior, good instincts, breathtaking greed, and heroic courage, Leg the Spread is an uproarious, adrenaline-fueled memoir that offers a completely new take on women and Wall Street—and an unprecedented entrée into one of the last true financial playgrounds.


About the Author

CARI LYNN was a clerk at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for more than two years, and has written feature stories for numerous publications. She lives in Chicago.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE


Leg the Spread


In the Futures market, it's all about minimizing risk and maximizing your wallet. Buying something gives you one leg, but you've got big potential to lose unless you sell something to get the other leg. If you can come full circle, and you've got two legs to stand on, that's your spread. This takes expertise and guts, and it shouldn't matter whether you're male or female--but it does. It's a man's world in trading; as a woman you can make your money by legging the spread, or . . .


Before I officially set foot on the Futures trading floor, I was told a cautionary tale about a young woman trader, whom I'll call Anne McKenzie. When I asked her real name, the veteran trader who was confiding in me became squirmy. "I don't want to say, besides, you'll never find anything on her anyway." He stressed never. Unable to resist, I asked why. He writhed some more. He was merely an acquaintance of a friend of mine whom I'd just met, so he owed me no further explanation. But he offered me an ultimatum: "I will tell you this story if you promise not to ask anything more about it." I promised.

It was in the late 1980s, and Anne McKenzie lived a few blocks from my apartment, in a cluster of condominiums called Sandburg Village. Hers was a high-rise like most here in downtown Chicago: a tower with dozens of floors, a doorman, a swimming pool, and a view of Lake Michigan--the coveted lake view. A half turn southeast and you'd see the solid black-beamed Hancock building and contrasting marble Water Tower Place grazing the skyline. If you looked due south, to the Loop, you could see the Sears Tower--the country's tallest--and all the other skyscrapers in its shadow, including the world's largest and busiest Futures trading forums: the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where McKenzie worked, and the neighboring Chicago Board of Trade.

On a blustery night McKenzie stood on the top floor of Sandburg, named for the Chicago writer Carl Sandburg, whose first published work was entitled "In Reckless Ecstasy." I imagine she still felt that ringing in her ears from all the shouting and commotion, and that fluttering in her chest from the fear and the awe, from the challenge of a volatile market, and the challenge of being one of the few females to try to play the game. McKenzie was around my age, early thirties. Her brand-spanking-new car--a Porsche, perhaps, that one trade alone had bought--was in the garage many stories below. Her condo, without a doubt, looked over the lake. She had been making the money, standing next to the men, enduring their taunts, their come-ons, their doubting her. She had earned their respect, at least enough so that they said hello to her, even though it was often just a breezy nod as they dashed past her to the inner circle of the pit. McKenzie had yet to make it to the inner circle, but she had the taste of success on her lips--and it seemed the sweetest sugar there was.

And then: Monday, October 19, 1987. The ticker scrolls by. The numbers are starting to drop. For the first couple of minutes, it's just a slide. It's like you're skidding on ice, but you still have your balance, you're still standing. McKenzie watches $5,000 disappear. It's going to be a bad day, she says to herself. In a minute, $5,000 turns to $20,000, and a bad day instantly turns into a bad month. But this is only the beginning.

The numbers nose-dive. Traders are yelling out quotes, and the yells are accelerating into bloodcurdling screams. It's sheer panic--a room full of hundreds of men and less than a handful of women, all in hysteria. At first, it's luxury that slips away--that new candy-colored BMW convertible you had your eye on, the A-frame condo in Aspen. A few minutes pass--minutes that seem like half seconds, flashing by like the ticker, all bright lights, there, then gone. The Dow is flashing: down 100, down 200, down, down, down. Chaos breaks out, men jump over one another, pushing, kicking, cursing the air--it's like war; every person for him- or herself. The rules don't matter much anymore. All eyes are glued, in disbelief, to the electronic price-reporting boards. The numbers flip at a dizzying pace. It's as if each board were a clock and some little devil has got hold of the levers and is twirling the hands round and round. Usually the numbers tick off with a sort of rhythm; they now are plummeting too quickly for the boards to even keep up.

Now it isn't only the Paris vacation you've lost, it's the second car in your garage--tick--it's your retirement savings--tick--it's your kids' college fund--tick--it's your only remaining car--tick--it's your mortgage. You're watching it all slip through your fingers--five minutes ago you were trying to make it better, trying to still play the game; now you just want to get out. But it's way past too late.

Right next to you, a man in his early forties, father of two, has a breakdown. He's a seasoned trader, had purchased his seat at the Mercantile Exchange ten years ago for $700,000. He was trading against it, as many traders do, using the seat as collateral. In less than a minute, he has just watched his seat, plus everything else, disappear. He is now bankrupt, he owes money, and he's lost the right to trade. In less than a minute. He sinks right there on the steps of the pit, his head collapsing into his hands, and sobs. On the other side of you, another trader grabs his tie and lifts it above his head as if he's hanging himself. Across the pit, a big-shot new guy lurches over and throws up on his $600 pair of Bruno Maglis. He, like everyone on the trading floor, had tried dumping everything, his whole position in the Market. But you can't, not when everyone's dumping and no one's buying; the bid-ask spread isn't just huge, it's nonexistent. People are wiping themselves out on a single trade, because once you're in a spot like that, it's like standing in front of a speeding train.

Now you hardly remember all those days when making money seemed effortless. One trade--boom! Three thousand!--it took less than a minute. Five thousand dollars! Ten thousand, thirty thousand! And now, losing it seems just as easy, sand through your fingers. One second it's a handful, the next, it's gone, taken by the wind.

Only, you never realized that losing everything after you've had it is worse than never having had it at all.

It's all over the news--Crash! Dive! Meltdown! Massacre! The newspapers will run it as the cover story: each front page, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, will show similar photos: the average trader--a thirty-year-old white guy--overcome with rage, terror, even tears. They'll term it Black Monday; it will go down in the books as the day when $1 trillion evaporated in the single largest stock market drop in history.

It didn't matter to Anne McKenzie that everyone was feeling it. Self-absorption was part of the business, and so was greed. And here it was, in all its manifestations: it was only she who mattered, and money.

Trading is about making money. A job well done is not indicated by a problem solved or a task completed, nor by a promotion or the degree to which you've helped someone else. A job well done is indicated by money, and money alone. Money is the measure of your worth.

Not only was McKenzie out of money, but she, like thousands of other traders, received a margin call. It was just as if she had maxed out a credit card. Those faceless, nameless people who ran the show were coming to claim what seems like yours, but is rightfully theirs. For a Futures trader, the IRS-like figure is the clearing firm. They can be your best friend when they back you and enable you to start trading, or they can be your worst enemy when they're coming for you. Somewhere in the clearing firm that represented McKenzie, a notice went off on her account. The red alert: she owed money.

"Hello, Ms. Anne McKenzie, you have a margin call of $80,000. You need to wire the money to us within forty-eight hours or else we'll be forced to liquidate your position. You will be liable for any resulting deficit. Thank you."

On the next call, the voice wasn't as friendly. "Ms. McKenzie, you now have a margin call of $1 million. You must wire this money immediately or we will be forced to take action." That day in October was a busy one for clearing firms. Some clearing firms even had to resort to sending a representative to the trading floor to drag the blown-out trader off. Those were the traders for whom the gambler's last-ditch mentality had taken over, If I can just keep going I can make back something, anything! But the clearing firms knew better. The clearing-firm representatives had the loathsome task of recovering these corpses; corpses that were still warm enough to do lethal damage in the trading pits.

For McKenzie, the third call was the charm: "We've implemented our right to increase the margin requirement. You have a margin call of $3 million." Three million dollars? Unlike other traders, she had never even had that much money, and now she owed it. So if having zero made her nothing, what in the hell was negative three million? She was shit. Lower than shit, and how do you face that?

She decided that you don't.

Anne McKenzie took a forty-story swan dive from the top of her Sandburg Village condominium--in reckless ecstasy.


The veteran trader who told me about McKenzie turned out to be right--I'd find nothing on her. The day I heard the story, I was unexplainably entranced. I began scouring old newspapers. I combed death records and obituaries. I spent hours on the Internet searching every possible keyword I could think of. Nothing. How could someone leap off a high-rise and there be no mention of it? Anywhere? I began to wonder if my confidant was fabricating the whole story. Aside from the fact that there didn't seem to be a logical motive for him to do that--he was a well-respected trader who also taught and wrote about technical aspects of trading--his discomfiture made me believe he was telling the truth. Almost immediately after mentioning he had a story for me, he'd acted as if his better judgment had kicked in and that he wanted to take his words right back. He ended up drilling into me the "you didn't hear this from me" defense, only he seemed to do so not out of a need to be secretive, or private, or even dramatic, but more in an uneasy, backpedaling, fidgety way that, I believe, stemmed from the edges of fear.

I didn't understand it at the time; what possibly could he be afraid of? Of course, this conversation took place when I was a wide-eyed neophyte in the Futures trading world, before I had spent two years on the trading floor; before I really understood how money--just the very allure of money--could make people do very strange things; before I learned that McKenzie was far from the first trader to choose such a final option, and would likely be far from the last; and before I came to realize that fear was something that existed everywhere on the trading floor, encircling every trader in every pit. For fear was the only force that offset greed, and greed seemed to come stitched into the very polyester fibers of a trading jacket. Even people who weren't necessarily greedy in any other aspects of life, once they slid their arms into the trading jacket, once they affixed their badge with their acronym, the transformation was, dare I say, inevitable.

Anne McKenzie's tale was my dubious welcome into this world. Perhaps she had been welcomed in the more traditional way of being handed a roll of toilet paper and told, "This place is not for weak stomachs." It would be more than two years before I would finally stumble upon McKenzie's real name--and it would happen under similar circumstances, laced with discomfort and fear. The veteran trader had told me the truth all right--just not the whole story.


A typical trader--a male in his early thirties, golf shirt, khakis, sneakers, and the telltale brightly colored polyester trader's jacket--was extolling his philosophy of Futures trading to me. He emphasized his enthusiasm with dramatic hand gestures: "I make money on the Up," he swooped the air with his arm. "And I make money on the Down." He sliced the air the other way. His eyes were glowing. It was the glow of making thousands of dollars in a minute flat. The glow of hitting a million a year--when you're twenty-five years old. It's the Life Is Good When You're Me glow. And many Futures traders here, on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, have it.

Today, like any typical day, the Floor resembled a Super Bowl stadium: a 70,000-square-foot arena where everyone was on their feet, screaming, pushing, shoving, anything they could do to get the trade; they were all dressed in vibrant colors, as if they were supporting teams; digital boards--scoreboards, for the sake of the analogy--lined the walls, blinking, flashing, dipping, rising; and the testosterone was almost tangible. The energy of the trading floor was undeniable, everything moved fast, fast, fast, watch out, or you'd get trampled! Several thousand people worked here, and they all seemed to be racing in different directions. It was like this five days a week, all year round. I still find it amazing, actually, that this apparent insanity works as effectively as it does, but Futures trading has been efficient for over a hundred years.

And not just efficient--but, potentially, downright lucrative. Some of the wealthiest people in the world stand in these trading pits. But what the trader didn't admit to me at that moment was that when the glow was not there, when you'd bet that the Market was going to rise, but instead it plummeted, when you lost money on the Up, as well as the Down, that's when you were caught. And the money always seemed to disappear faster than it had come to you. And then, the only dramatic gesture you were making was the invisible slit to the throat. For every glowing eye, there is an accident site. And the trader is bleeding money.


I suppose my journey began with a romanticism along the lines of, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" and I'm still not entirely sure how it is that a young, soft-voiced, rather nonmaterialistic, rather introverted writer found herself on the trading floor. But there I was, in the midst of the opposite of everything that made me feel comfortable, the opposite of everything that I defined as my ideals.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (known in the financial world as "the Merc") is the busiest Futures exchange in the world: a hair-raising, high-pressure den of iniquity with enough yelling, bullying, and mayhem to rattle even the toughest of hardball commodities traders. And if you're a woman, the Merc can be the seventh circle of hell, given the sexual harassment, verbal vulgarity, and blatant condescension that come with the turf. But that fact hasn't stopped a handful of talented and determined women from crashing the frat party of the Merc and making millions while they're at it. When Cari Lynn first ventured onto the floor of the Merc in early 2000, she did so because she, like so many others, was riveted by the amount of money that could be made through trading with seemingly little effort. But she quickly discovered that only a handful of females have ever made it into the trading pits-a testosterone-saturated world where the men are often monsters and there's no room for boys, let alone women. Leg the Spread is the highly entertaining account of Lynn's years as a clerk at the Merc, a job that taught her not only the cutthroat rules of engagement but also just how far both men and women will go when they stand to win or lose everything in the blink of an eye.

From learning the fast-moving art of "arb" (the hand signals used to generate trades) to learning to shout over the roar of the pits, Leg the Spread follows Lynn as she discovers the rush of high-stakes moneymaking-and herself. Along the way, she shares the stories of the Merc's women traders, a motley crew of personalities who show her how to play the game. From Natalie, who bares her midriff and records her trades with a pink pom-pom pen, but is known to throw a punch to stand her ground, to Bev, who hustles billions of dollars in contracts every day and whose sway over the market is so great that major players like Goldman Sachs refuse to trade if she's not in the pit, Lynn provides a riveting portrait of what it takes to prove your moxie daily in the midst of this ultimate men's club. Packed with jaw-dropping stories of bad behavior, good instincts, breathtaking greed, and heroic courage, Leg the Spread is an uproarious, adrenaline-fueled memoir that offers a completely new take on women and Wall Street-and an unprecedented entree into one of the last true financial playgrounds.

SYNOPSIS

In the Futures market, it’s all about minimizing risk and maximizing your wallet. Buying something gives you one leg—selling something gives you another—and if you’ve got two legs to stand on, that’s your spread. Anyone can make money by legging the spread, but if you’re a woman, you need something else: the presence, savvy, and stomach to run with the bulls and make your way in this ultimate boys club.

Welcome to the jungle.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (known in the financial world as “the Merc”) is the busiest Futures exchange in the world: a hair-raising, high-pressure den of iniquity with enough yelling, bullying, and mayhem to rattle even the toughest of hardball commodities traders. And if you’re a woman, the Merc can be the seventh circle of hell, given the sexual harassment, verbal vulgarity, and blatant condescension that comes with the turf. But that fact hasn’t stopped a handful of talented and determined women from crashing the frat party of the Merc and making millions while they’re at it.
When Cari Lynn first ventured onto the floor of the Merc in early 2000, she did so because she, like so many others, was riveted by the amount of money that could be made through trading with seemingly little effort. But she quickly discovered that only a handful of females have ever made it into the trading pits—a testosterone-saturated world where the men are often monsters and there’s no room for boys, let alone women. Leg the Spread is the highly entertaining account of Lynn’s years as a clerk at the Merc, a job that taught her not only the cutthroat rules ofengagement, but just how far both men and women will go when they stand to win or lose everything in the blink of an eye.
From learning the fast-moving art of “arb”—the hand signals used to generate trades—to learning to shout over the roar of the pits, Leg the Spread follows Lynn as she discovers the rush of high-stakes moneymaking, and herself. Along the way, she shares the stories of the Merc’s women traders, a motley crew of personalities who show her how to play the game. From Natalie, who bares her midriff and records her trades with a pink pom-pom pen, but is known to throw a punch to stand her ground, to Bev, who hustles billions of dollars in contracts every day and whose sway over the market is so great that major players like Goldman Sachs refuse to trade if she’s not in the pit, Lynn provides a riveting portrait of what it takes to prove your moxie daily in the midst of this ultimate men’s club.
Packed with jaw-dropping stories of bad behavior, good instincts, breathtaking greed, and heroic courage, Leg the Spread is an uproarious, adrenaline-fueled memoir that offers a completely new take on women and Wall Street—and an unprecedented entrée into one of the last true financial playgrounds.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this insightful volume, Lynn gives readers a glimpse into the world of the "Merc," or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a rough, gritty, action-packed scene dictated by money and testosterone-a place where women are outsiders. Lynn, an artistic type who never properly explains (and doesn't seem to know herself) why she wanted to prove herself in a place like the Merc, uses the stories of the many women she interviewed and heard stories of to illustrate how a man's success is easily measured in dollars, while a woman's success takes into account many complicated factors. The harassment, teasing, double standards, unfair practices and overall rough-and-tumble environment make for an exciting, fast-paced backdrop in which men are traders and women are wannabes, gold diggers and worse. The book's pace is good, the women's stories are sometimes downright riveting and this account reads like a novel. These women aren't heroines-most are in it for the money, and there is little in the way of happy endings or morals for the stories. But readers are treated to a skilled presentation of the sights, sounds and even smells of a world that few women-or men, for that matter-ever truly understand. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

"Leg the spread" is a trading term for safeguarding your position, and Lynn here presents the stories of women who have done just that while making it in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a.k.a. the Merc. Lynn, who worked as a clerk on the Merc for over two years, starts with a story from October 19, 1987 Black Monday, when a trillion dollars evaporated in the single largest stock market drop in history. In absorbing her description of an environment dominated by yelling, bullying, and mayhem, readers get to know retired trader Ricki, bottom feeder Alexis, and Bev, backbone of the Merc. These and other savvy women outwit and outearn the men in the ultimate boy's club. Readers will not only enjoy this entertaining and well-written book but also will learn about the riskiest form of trading. What would you do if you got a margin call to pay up $1 million? Not a necessary purchase but definitely enlightening. Susan C. Awe, Univ. of New Mexico Lib., Albuquerque Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A young journalist breaks into the mostly male world of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and learns a life lesson: "It always surprises me how greedy I really am."So, it seems, are the blazer-clad players on the floor of the Merc, where antacids are mother's milk and stress-induced heart attacks are as common as colds. The floor is the province of men, even if women traders are not so rare as they once were; says one of the veterans, "being a woman, you really are alone and independent here. If you have no one to talk to, it's this very, very heavy load to be carrying around." Not discouraged, Lynn buys her seat on the exchange-a transaction, we learn, that is fraught with all kinds of hidden financial perils when markets turn south, which is often. She fearlessly sets to work, discovering along the way that tenacity counts more than smarts and that it's dangerous to analyze things too closely in the world of business, where the herd instinct runs strong: first impulse, best impulse. One mentor tells her, in this regard, "The one thing you can count on at the Merc . . . is that there is always someone more stupid than you." Lynn performs valiantly, but the pleasure here is not in watching her grow as a trader but learning the ins and outs and occult jargon of the trading floor: the secret sign language of the "arb," for instance-"If Paine Webber has just dropped a large order, you start rubbing your neck, like a pain. . . . If I start scratching my nose before the order, it means do the opposite-so if I'm saying buy, I really mean sell)-and the complexities of covering a bet by working both sides of the transaction, the "legging the spread" of the title. A Plimptonesque revel, and one ofthe most entertaining business books to come around in a long while. Agent: Dan Mandel/Sanford J. Greenburger Associates

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Gail Evans

A swashbuckling adventure in the heart of Chicago that should not be missed... Cari Lynn takes you inside the crash-and-burn world of "the Merc," a baptism by fire where the good old boys club is invaded by girls who-with humor, guts and acumen-get even by getting rich. — author of Play Like A Man, Win Like A Woman and She Wins, You Win

Lois P. Frankel