A few years ago (back in 1996), the Marines brought in NYMEX traders to help them examine how a future combat operations center might work. From War in the Pits: Marine-Futures Traders Wargame:
Futures trading is an eponym for the American way of war at the close of the millennium. A Combat Operations Center (COC) — combining intelligence, operations and fire support coordination — will resemble the trading floor. Commodity markets, like battlefields, are zero-sum games where every winner has a loser. Futures traders fight economic wars daily; Marines fight about once a decade. Some of the best traders are former military. Military skills translate to the trading world; conversely, can traders sharpen military decisionmaking?The GAMA Corporation proposed a digital-based command & control wargame, with units reporting hundreds of firing opportunities through an animated program. The idea was championed by General Richard D. Hearney, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Mr. Patrick Thompson, President of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). On December 4-5 in New York City, 22 Marines teamed one-on-one with 22 traders.
The first day the Marines went on the tumultuous trading floor and participated in a mock trading simulation. The simulation enabled the Marines to experience how quickly large-dollar decisions are made and how important an underlying strategy is when market tempo surges.
The next day the traders joined the Marines in the computer wargame. The nonlinear battlefield consisted of 300 square miles of mountainous terrain. Seventy small teams were deployed, relying upon stealth for survival and indirect systems for firepower. The intent was to bring constant pressure upon dispersed enemy units and break unit cohesion.
At the conclusion, each trader was asked: Can trading techniques assist combat decisionmaking when digital data and fire missions are rapidly received?
The traders and Marines drew a number of conclusions. I found this one interesting:
Both in simulations and social gatherings, the Marines and traders intermingled easily: They spoke each other’s language. As the Chairman of the NYMEX, Daniel Rappaport, observed: “We play the same game of risk-reward analysis, only your stakes are much higher. We both confront chaotic information…and act quickly.”Traders, like fighter pilots, fight for six hours. Rarely do they leave a position open at the end of the trading day. In contrast, everyone in a COC puts in prodigious hours. If a trader cannot trust his instincts to make consistently sound decisions after six hours, COC duty hours in combat need to be reexamined.