Floor traders on the New York Mercantile Exchange have plenty to worry about these days: volatile prices; the cost of doing business on the exchange; the future ownership of the world's largest energy futures exchange; and, most worrisome of all, the threat electronic trading poses to their livelihoods.

The sale last week of a Nymex seat for a record $2.485m, about 25 per cent higher than the previous seat sale record set last October, was welcomed by James Newsome, Nymex president, as a vote of confidence in the exchange's future growth.