New York Mercantile Exchange - NYMEX

The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), or Merc, trades commodities like cotton, oil, sugar, gold, and corrupt congressmen. It’s this building with wild gang graffiti in Manhattan. Right along the Hudson. Perfect for anyone, um...second-guessing any of their investment decisions.

Although, in reality, there are now zero transactions done inside the actual exchange. This being the 21st century, everything’s electronic.

As recently as 2016, if you preferred to get your hands, feet, and soul dirty, you could head on down to 1 North End Avenue, hop into the “pit,” and scream and gesticulate wildly, along with the handful of others on the physical trading floor.

But because investors by and large traded in a trek to the Exchange with a few clicks on their Mac, everything is now entirely on the interwebs. While the physical location today just houses, well…webs.