Europe's last old-school trading floor moves home

London

LONDON's metal traders used to conduct their business in a rowdy coffee house. Two centuries later, they are still shouting across Europe's last open-outcry trading floor but in a plush, new, high-tech office.

The heart of the operation is a circle of red-leather benches - the "Ring", where stressed-out traders crowd round to buy and sell and in the process set daily global prices for copper, aluminium or zinc.

The "Ring" tradition dates back to the early 19th century when a trader would draw a circle in the sawdust on the floor of…