A decade has passed since tragedy struck at the heart of our financial center. Here are five big trends that have impacted all Americans and the economy in the years since:
1. The connection between Wall Street and Main Street has waned. On 9/11, more Americans than ever before had a vested stake in what happened a few blocks away at the corner of Broad and Wall. Since then, millions of Americans who owned individual stocks have reduced their overall holdings and have retreated into ETFs and mutual funds.
2. Stock markets of other industrialized economies have fared worse than our own. Since Sept. 10, 2001, French stocks as measured by the CAC-40 are down 31 percent; the Nikkei is down 14 percent; British stocks are exactly where they were the first week of September, 2001; and even the mighty German economy has seen its stock market rise just 13 percent, a bit less than the gain for the Dow.
COMPLETE 9/11 ANNIVERSARY COVERAGE
3. Long-term interest rates have collapsed. Interest rates have cratered in the last decade. Back then, a 10-year Treasury yielded just under 5 percent; today the rate has dipped to a 60-year low of 1.91 percent.
4. Anti-globalization protesters don’t look so crazy. In the weeks before 9/11, the anti-globalization renegades grabbed headlines with their disruption of the G-7 meeting in Genoa, Italy. Ten years later, with Italy and Greece on the brink, and the whole idea of a Euro Zone looking completely misguided, one has to admit they may have been on to something.
5. Oil prices have tripled since 9/11 2001, from $27 a barrel then to about $88 today. This is a turn of events few would have predicted a decade ago. Reversing this tide by Sept. 11, 2021, through conservation and by fully tapping into America’s immense energy resources will be the ultimate revenge.