The day is quiet, at first, for 26-year-old Joseph Schmuckler, program trader for Kidder Peabody. The blinking number on his computer screen, which will signal him when it is time to unleash his electronic firepower, is advising him to wait. But suddenly the stock market begins to move downward, and the telltale digit on Schmuckler's screen starts changing like a countdown at Cape Canaveral. The trader and his two assistants erupt in a frenzy of shouted telephone conversations as they advise colleagues in New York City and Chicago to get ready for a blast of trading orders. "Strap on your seat...
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