Hey everyone,

I was in New York last week, and I took a walk I'd been putting off for years.

I went down to 86 Trinity Place and stood in front of the American Stock Exchange. That building is where all of this started for me.

The exchange isn't there anymore. Trading moved out on December 1, 2008, over to the New York Stock Exchange floor at 11 Wall Street. New York City landmarked the building in 2012, including the old trading floor inside it.

But the facade is still there. The letters are still bolted to the front. And standing in front of it hit me harder than I expected.

(Tap the video above to watch.)

Thousands of People, All Yelling

The first time I walked into that building, there were thousands of people on the floor yelling back and forth at each other.

I was intimidated. I was also completely captivated.

A trading floor doesn't sound like a crowded restaurant. It's a physical thing that hits you in the chest and doesn't let up.

My Interview Landed on a Greenspan Day

My interview happened to fall on the day Alan Greenspan cut interest rates with no warning. This was early 2001, months before September 11th.

Greenspan didn't telegraph anything back then. No press conferences, no statements pointing at the next move, nothing. He kept everybody guessing on purpose, and then a half-point cut showed up out of nowhere.

The floor detonated.

That explosion of noise is what I remember most. Not the number, not the tape, just the sound.

I stood in that building and thought: I want to do this for the rest of my life.

I'm not a market maker anymore. The American Stock Exchange doesn't carry that name anymore either. It trades as NYSE American now, mostly electronically, and the crowd is long gone.

But I still trade. I still work with traders and teach people how to do this without wrecking their accounts. That's a pretty good deal.

Your only option,

Mark Sebastian