I was in the CBOT agricultural futures and options pits. Despite the fact that we had hand signals, yelling and then running over to a broker who had an order you wanted to trade was by far the most popular way for a trade to be executed. Hand signals were more often used for trade confirmations and for communicating with your clerks or trading partners.
I'm pretty sure the sign for Deutsche Bank is making a Hitler mustache with your index finger. That's something.
https://tradingpithistory.com/hand-signals/participants-cme/...
This is still the best (Hollywood quality) depiction of what the trading pit looked like in reality. Trading Places, 1983: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLySXTIBS3c
Most people don't know that pit trading is still around! I work in SPX options trading and the CBOE in Chicago still has a huge in person trading pit.
Reminds me of the Drow, how appropriate.
I had a laugh comparing the signs of the brokers GNI (japanese I believe?) https://tradingpithistory.com/hand-signals/participants-liff... and Deutsche Bank (German) - https://tradingpithistory.com/hand-signals/participants-liff... . More innocent times...