“Trading on the Street”

The Museum of American Finance has a new home and an even newer exhibit (bankrolled in part by an ailing Wall Street). Here’s everything you need to know about it—in a financial analyst’s report.

By Sophie Fels

Museum inception: 1988
Museum objective: “Empowering visitors to make more effective financial decisions”
Newest acquistions: “Trading on the Street: From the Buttonwood to Today,” opening Wednesday 19
Assets: 10,000-piece permanent collection
Liabilities: Loans from the New York Stock Exchange Archives for the “Trading” exhibit
Institutional investors: The museum is “most grateful for the support of the following corporations”: 27 companies, all but two of which offer financial services, including the American International Group, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. (Sounds like somebody needs an exhibit on diversification…)
Minimum Investment: The MoAF gift shop offers finance posters, bunny zipper banks, and catchy titles like Separating Fools from Their Money.

What it is:	"Trading on the Street"	"The Financial Markets"
Objectives:	The mechanics of trading and the impact of technology	A broad view of the markets for stocks, bonds and commodities
Offices:	Literally "on Wall Street"-in the middle of the road	Wired, fluorescent-lit trading floors, populated by wired, fluroescent lit-traders
Technologies:	Semaphore flags, carrier pigeons, pneumatic tubes, telegraphs and landline phones	No pigeons, but a big, blinking Bloomberg Terminal
Layoffs:	Pneumatic tubes and telephones made messenger boys redundant in the 1920s.	Computers are moving in on today’s traders: Many work alongside systems that bypass the floor.