A closer look
You might assume the global price of industrial metals is calculated by an advanced supercomputer processing terabytes of supply chain data. You would be horribly wrong. The London Metal Exchange still utilizes the "Ring," a bizarre 19th-century ritual where men sit in a highly specific circle of red leather couches and literally scream at each other for exactly five minutes per metal. This highly theatrical "open-outcry" trading dictates the baseline cost of everything from the aluminum in your soda can to the copper in your smartphone. In an era of high-frequency AI trading algorithms, the cornerstone of global manufacturing still looks like a chaotic British frat party.
