Veteran S&P pit trader describes leaving open outcry early, a cascading Globex loss he quietly paid, and how the move to screens shattered lives — including his father’s.

ELMHURST, IL (JLN) — February 19, 2026 — Veteran CME local Scott Kohl walked away from the S&P pit years before it closed, convinced electronic trading would overtake open outcry and determined to leave on his own terms rather than in desperation. Kohl said he set up screens in Chicago, the suburbs and Florida to keep trading, but never replicated the consistency he found on the floor. His faith in early electronic markets proved costly when a cascading error on Globex, compounded by frozen screens, a “hit bid and offer” function, and an absent risk desk, left him with a nearly $5 million loss on roughly 80,000 to 90,000 contracts, a setback he covered with a check the next day. The incident drew interest from major media outlets more for what it implied about the safety of the system as the exchange prepared to go public than for the size of the loss, he recalled, adding that he stayed quiet after an unrecorded warning from Merc leadership and now wishes he had forced a full forensic review.

Kohl said the shift from pits to screens was traumatic for many in the trading community, including his father, longtime Merc member Ted Kohl, who died by suicide despite owing no one money. For older locals whose identities and optimism were bound to the floor, the move to computers often meant feeling suddenly worthless and unemployable, he said. Kohl recalled a period in which suicides among former floor traders averaged “several a year” and then ticked higher, and he still urges those facing ruin to see bankruptcy, a low‑wage job, or a completely new career as better options than a “permanent solution to a temporary problem.” He believes the exchange could have done more to warn traders that their skills were not easily transferable and to normalize conversations about financial and emotional stress, even if the fiercely individualistic culture made intervention difficult.

The former S&P local pushed back against the stereotype that open‑outcry trading was simply gambling, describing good floor traders as conservative, probability‑driven risk takers who generally avoided the action-seeking behavior that led some colleagues to bet heavily on sports or in casinos after hours. The floor, he said, offered every temptation, from drugs to constant “action,” but his father’s blunt advice, that he could make “brain surgeon” money and still be home for every Little League game if he chose, helped him build a disciplined routine and a family life that never required staying downtown until 7 p.m. The culture, he added, was one in which reputations were made not just on P&L but on keeping one’s word, paying losses, and showing up the next day.

After leaving the floor, Kohl parlayed his experience into speeches and a brief radio show about financial products before relocating to Florida, where he built a property management company overseeing roughly 100 to 150 homes. The business, he joked, was far more stressful than trading because every broken pipe or failed air conditioner was his responsibility. He sold the company last year and is now looking for a new path that engages his mind without trying to recreate his “first love” in the pits. For the first time since grade school, he said, he is seriously asking what he might have done if the Merc had never existed — and hoping to find work that he enjoys, even if it never matches the money, intensity, and camaraderie of the trading floor that shaped his life.