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information he receives will be seconds behind at best. That outdated informationis a representation of a temporal market reality that no longer exists.Social networks complicate this understanding of the market. Thesenetworks stretch the market over time. They create agreements between individualsabout the shape of the market, even though the CBOT defines themarket as a phenomenon confined to the daily trade. The formation of adefined social space within the pit creates problems for the designers andmanagers who are responsible for creating and maintaining an “efficient”marketplace. The social understandings of time and space in the market underminethe technological design of the market. The competing notions of spaceand time cannot be reconciled easily.SplinteringTechnology in financial networks 203Despite the temporal and spatial centrality of the pit, the physical proximity oftraders creates splintering. Strategies for profit-making in the pit result in thespatial and social fragmentation of the market. The largest pit at the CBOTholds 600 traders. In an arena of such vast size, not all traders are available ata single time. Traders can use their own discretion when identifying their tradingpartners. Traders use this judgment to create protected spaces of exchange,or neighborhoods. In these enclaves, traders of similar skills and risk-takingtastes gather in a single area of the pit to support each other’s labor. Brokersand individual traders of great influence encourage younger traders who showpromise to stand close to them in the pit. This proximity allows the influentialspeculator to do business with the traders of his choice, establishing centers ofprofitability within the supposedly open marketplace. 11 Although the pit wascreated to centralize and unify the market, the social network of the pit isarranged in clusters that trade more with one another and less with thoseoutside their “neighborhood.”The stepped structure of the pit also creates a problem for traders who practicea technique called spreading between contracts. These speculators – alsocalled yield-curve traders – exploit fluctuations in the relationship betweenprices in the 30, 10, and 5-year treasury futures. For a spreader based primarilyin the 10-year pit the key profit is to have instant access to trade in the 5-year notes. Spreaders dominate an area where these traders have anuninterrupted view of the 5-year pit. The pit is also divided into areas accordingto the expiration month of the contract. Traders who deal in “front month”contracts – the futures contract that will expire next – gather in one area of thepit. Traders who trade the middle and back month contracts gather in distinctareas. The shape of the pit and the arrangement of pits on the trading floorcondition the physical arrangement of the social network of traders.CBOT dealers have been plying their trade in pits for 155 years. Until