Today saw the launch of Nymex Europe's open outcry crude futures pit open in London. Nymex have been running this pit in Ireland for some time, and it is seen as the replacement to the IPE which stopped open outcry trading in April of this year. The advantages of open out cry are that it is fun too watch it gets to the nitty gritty of trading and the volume of noise shows how liquid the market is. In reality it is very difficult to police, and requires comprehensive human input to re-enter trades which are shouted across the floor. A computer trading screen can automate this process and push the actual deal time down to nano-seconds. The chance of error is greatly reduced and whilst in order to trade in a bear pit you need a loud voice and steel nerves at least on a screen one can gather ones thoughts and see when the screen is active and when it is not. The IPE may have lost some old friends but in reality they have cut some serious costs and still hold the market in terms of indices. Nymex has found an easy way to get an opening into a market that they have left in the past. The PR campaigns will run and run but no one denies that it is more fun to watch a bunch of brightly coloured jackets shout at each other, as opposed to a changing excel spreadsheet.