At the start, the dow jones stock index rose by just under half a percent to 13,165 points. The borse building had been spared the floods that hurricane sandy had driven through lower manhattan at the beginning of the week. Nevertheless, the u.S. Fraternity had collectively decided to skip trading on monday and tuesday. The financial district has no electricity and the subway shafts are partly under water.
The last time the new york stock exchange (nyse) was closed for so long because of a storm was in 1888, when it was a snowstorm. Borsen boss duncan niederauer defended the decision to suspend trading for a whole two days on the CNBC television channel: human lives had been in danger. "Anyone who questions the decision should think again carefully."
The operation of the NYSE is maintained by emergency generators. The borse was one of the few brightly lit buildings in lower manhattan. The famous facade of the column shone in the morning in the national colors of woman, red and blue. However, it proved problematic that neither cell phone networks nor the internet worked in the surrounding offices.
Despite all the problems, the start of trading went smoothly, explained borsen boss niederauer. Many employees and tradesmen living far away had to come to work by their own cars or cabs, or face long commutes. The subway is still not running, the bus service has just started again.
The employees of the competitor nasdaq also had problems getting to work. But because their building is further inland at times square, there is at least electricity via the normal network here. Storm damage in the area mostly limited to downed branches. The nasdaq runs purely computer-based, there is no floor with traders here.