Cabinet Crowd

What is ‘Cabinet Crowd’

Members of the NYSE who typically trade in inactive bonds. The cabinet crowd is made up of a relatively small group of traders and investors who deal in inactive fixed-income securities. These bonds are inactive due to the fact that they are not actively traded and, thus, are deemed more illiquid, causing bid-ask spreads to be much wider than active or more liquid bonds.

Explaining ‘Cabinet Crowd’

The name cabinet crowd arises from the fact that historically these members would typically enter limit orders for transacting these bonds, which were kept in “cabinets” adjacent to the bond trading floor until the limit prices were attained. Once these limit prices were reached, the orders would then be removed from said cabinets and executed.

Further Reading

  • Japan's financial crisis and economic stagnation – www.aeaweb.org [PDF]
  • Occupy the social Contract! participatory democracy and Iceland's crowd-sourced constitution – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • 1 'Heads in the Sand': Football, Politics and Crowd Disasters in Twentieth‐Century Britain – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Austerity and the path of least resistance: how fiscal consolidations crowd out long-term investments – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Social vs. Military Spending: How the Escalating Pentagon Budget Crowds out Public Infrastructure and Aggravates Natural Disasters—the Case of Hurricane Katrina – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Social finance and crowdfunding for social enterprises: A public–private case study providing legitimacy and leverage – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]