Kraft Trading Floor

The Burnell D. Kraft Trading Floor, located on the third floor of the College of Business and Analytics, is a state-of-the-art classroom that serves as the primary meeting room for the SSIF. The room was completed in November 2003 thanks to a generous donation from Burnell D. Kraft. Mr. Kraft graduated from the College of Business and Analytics in 1956 and went on to become senior vice president for Archer Daniels Midland Company. In reference to the trading room, Mr. Kraft notes, “You can get five to ten years of experience in a year or two using the technology you have here.” Indeed, thanks to the continued support of Mr. Kraft and the generosity of a number of other benefactors in the College of Business and Analytics, seven Bloomberg terminals were added to the trading room in June 2012. These terminals offer all College of Business and Analytics students access to up-to-the-second news and financial market information. Bloomberg also provides a wealth of information to inform the analysis of SSIF members as they research investment ideas for the SSIF portfolio. Finally, by integrating the use of Bloomberg into the operations of the SSIF and into most finance electives, finance and business students graduate from SIU already proficient at using a key tool used by the most successful financial firms.