NEW YORK – The nation’s stock markets will resume trading Monday, ending a four-day shutdown that followed the destruction of the World Trade Center, officials said Thursday.
Stock market officials, who made the decision to reopen the markets after meeting with representatives of the city, investment firms and local utilities, said they would conduct a test of the market systems Saturday to be sure trading can indeed proceed.
Trading was scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. EDT Monday.
New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso said no one in the financial industry supported resumption of trading over efforts to recover “those who are still with us that are trapped in the wreckage” of the World Trade Center buildings.
The NYSE, Nasdaq Stock Market and other financial markets had hoped to reopen no later than Monday. Teams of utility workers raced to reconnect telephone, electric and other services needed for the resumption of stock trading.
Before the announcement, financial markets resumed limited operations with bond trading.
Trading was subdued and relatively light as futures activity resumed on the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where one broker called it “hollow trading” in the absence of activity on Wall Street.
A jump in bond prices indicated that investors, nervous about the economy even before Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, were seeking safe haven investments.
But the lack of volatility reflected increasing hopes that the Federal Reserve will lower rates for the eighth time this year.
“It’s very different today,” said William Dalenberg, who trades Eurodollars at the Merc. “Everyone’s still grieving. … Everyone’s very cautious, I think, about getting into the market.”
Many traders tucked small American flags in their jacket pockets.
In overseas stock trading, Asian markets staged a modest recovery Thursday, while European markets opened almost unchanged. Market activity on both continents Europe was subdued as investors awaited the reopening of U.S. stock exchanges.
Damage to the American Stock Exchange, located in a building not far from the World Trade Center, was so severe that parts of its operations might be temporarily relocated to the NYSE, which remains intact, or to other regional markets, Grasso said.
The local telephone provider, Verizon, said one of its five switching centers near the disaster site was out of service. Some 200,000 lines and 3 million data circuits, or private lines that normally serve business customers, were housed in the building.
Offices of hundreds of companies were destroyed and hundreds of other firms were forced to flee. Even as they sought word on missing employees, companies worked nonstop to set up operations at replacement offices in New Jersey and elsewhere.
Many firms, while speaking of their new arrangements, would not specify exact locations for security reasons.
Merrill Lynch cannot access its football field-sized trading floors in the World Financial Center, which also suffered significant damage.
“We have contingency plans for activities to be carried out at other locations. In fact, I’m speaking to you from an emergency location right now,” said Merrill Lynch spokesman Rich Silverman.
Still, the industry’s task was made somewhat easier because many financial firms have their operations in other parts of New York or in other cities.
Morgan Stanley, the biggest tenant in the World Trade Center towers, keeps its trading desk elsewhere in New York. The towers were home to stock brokers who dealt with investor accounts, which are being relocated to other offices.
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