NASDAQ

Today I was lucky enough to get a peek inside the NASDAQ building in Times Sq.

From the outside (8500 LED lights (actually, what does LED stand for anyway? if I was smarter I'd have thought of a joke about how many XXX does it take to change 8500 LED bulbs... (?bulbs?))

Anyway, from the outside it looks very large. But as NASDAQ is a purely electronic market, this location is basically an advertising site for the 1.5m people outside, and for the TV networks to have somewhere pretty to film company news. That circular part is pretty much all there is to it; inside its basically a space for companies to have parties, or for men in grey suits to get onto a stage backed by huge screens and 'open' the market or celebrate being listed.

Watching this from the sidelines was pretty strange. The many suits were huddled on the stage, then music starts up...10 minutes to market opening, sort of thump thump, building like Jaws is coming. By one minute (grey suits told to applaud and cheer loudly) the music is frantic and quite frankly, I'm jumpy and pretty sure something terrible is going to happen, or we're going to take off!

Luckily....nothing happens. Nothing at all. It goes 9.30am, I guess money-people in the outside world start clicking their mice, and the screens start showing the prices going up and down. Phew.

Apparently the music was commissioned especially and cost a fair bit. The thumping is based on an actual heart beat (no kidding!). And given that there isn't much else to get hearts pumping (well, in a tangible sense), I'd say it is worth the $$.

I got a free muffin too :)