Chris Parker, a very young, tall, and thin Alabaman arrives in Chicago hoping to make a fortune in its famed commodities business as a floor trader. Indeed, his great height and freakish ability to make numerical calculations earns him quick promotion to broker for a Wall Street company. But quickly he realizes he is in a struggle the likes of which he could never have fathomed, including outright violence. Complicating matters, he becomes enthralled with a tiny girl trading on the far end of the huge Treasury Pit and begins trading obsessively with her on his customer orders. The story only gets more complicated from there.