Academic

Glommers, did you catch this article from yesterday's Journal?

The worst of the weather, though, was forecast to hit Sunday night into Monday, leading orange-juice traders to expect another wild session when trading resumes at 8 a.m. Eastern time Monday in New York on ICE Futures U.S.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?  Of a young, still-skinny Eddie Murphy and an at-least-much-thinner-than-now Dan Akroyd?  Am I the only one who finds it impossible to read "orange-juice traders" and not think Trading Places? 

I received at least some validation from today's Journal: "Orange juice futures trader Dominick Minervini spent years fending off comparisons to Dan Aykroyd in "Trading Places," the 1983 movie that thrust the tiny market into the public consciousness."

As the article recounts:

In "Trading Places," Mr. Aykroyd's Louis Winthorpe III and Eddie Murphy's Billy Ray Valentine join forces to get even with Mortimer and Randolph Duke, thwarting their attempt to corner the orange juice market and leaving them bankrupt. The climactic final scenes show frantic traders screaming out orders on the floor of the exchange, seeking to halt their losses."

Everett Collection

Times have changed, and the roiling trading pit of yesterday has been replaced by electronic trading.  The OJ futures trader quoted in the article "now trades from his New Jersey home." 

More efficient, I'm sure, but hardly the stuff of great '80s cinema.