Are retail investor (individual investors) allowed to trade on the NYSE floor? as in having a seat on the NYSE

Question

a friend of mine says that his friend is a trader on the NYSE. but he works for himself and trades only his money. but i thought that to trade on the NYSE floor you have to be trading for clients or for a company? ? just want to know if that's possible.

Answer 1

If a person trades on the floor of the NYSE he has to have a seat for which he has paid heavy dollars or he must work for  a firm which does own the seat.. My understanding is the floor is only open to traders as mentioned above.

Answer 2

if you're willing to shell out a few thousand per year, they'll let you do it, no problem.

i don't know what the current price for a seat license is, but i remember a couple years ago when they switched to being a public, for-profit company and started renting seat licenses instead of letting members sell actual seats, the price for a new seat license was around $50k/year.

Answer 3

sure, they'll let you in.

Answer 4

It is certainly possible to lease a seat, which is much cheaper than buying one.

That said, it's illegal to trade for your own account unless you're a specialist and you're not going to be a specialist.  Everyone who's on the NYSE floor and isn't a specialist is a broker, executing trades for someone else and getting paid for the service.  They used to be called $2 brokers because they were paid $2 for every round lot of 100 shares they executed.

It is possible to lease a seat on every commodity exchange or option exchange and trade for your own account.  It's also possible to trade electronically on all these exchanges and there are two ways to do it professionally.  Prop shops hire traders and you'll trade their money for a salary plus bonus.  Arcades provide the turn key capability to trade electronically and charge a monthly fee for the desk, technology, etc.  You'll fund your own account and keep all your gains (losses).

Good luck.

Answer 5

Retail investors are not allowed to trade on the floor of any exchange unless they are members of that exchange.

Any one that trades on the floor of an exchange is a member of that exchange, they may be trading for themselves or they are with a firm using the firm's capital.

They do not and can not trade for their clients, since members can not have shared trading accounts with customers/clients

been there, done that