The disappearance of the public auction market is viewed as resulting from the modernization of the Parisian financial sector by the mid-1980s. Two markets are concerned: first, the stock market that closed in 1988, which is studied on the basis of filmed archive documents centered on a symbolic action staged as a funeral; second, the derivatives market that disappeared in 1998. It is studied on the basis of ethnographic surveys carried out at Palais Brongniart during a period marked by strikes of salaried and independent employees. These social and symbolic actions are responses to the destructive and re-founding events that these closures represent. They are largely determined by the all-encompassing frameworks and socio-institutional histories. They depict a specific social period and have in common the fact of being unique in each of these local histories. Be they peaceful or conflictual, these actions must be regarded as counter-events rather than rituals or simple strikes. They are also the premise of enchanting accounts that will construct the past in a regretful mode and an institution golden age in memories and accounts of post-closure days.