A battered Wall Street is ready to open its doors for business, with banks, brokerages and exchanges aiming to be at near full strength by the end of the week.
The New York Stock Exchange — the symbolic center of the Street — is opening for trading today after a two-day shutdown, its longest closure due to bad weather since 1888.
“We are pleased to be able to return to normal trading tomorrow,” Duncan Niederauer, NYSE Euronext CEO, said after the exchange ran a number of tests to ensure that it would have a smooth trading day.
Niederauer said the iconic marble structure located at 11 Wall St. was undamaged by the storm, despite rumors Monday evening that the trading floor had been flooded by 3 feet of water.
Farther north, in Times Square, the Nasdaq stock market announced plans to resume regular trading, along with the markets for bonds, options and derivatives.
While the heart of Wall Street has moved away from its beginnings in the Financial District, several big banks maintain offices in lower Manhattan, which suffered damage and power outages at the hands of the monstrous storm.
Citigroup told employees on Tuesday that its offices at 111 Wall St. along the FDR Drive were “without power and impacted by flooding.”
“We anticipate this facility will remain unavailable for an extended period,” the bank behemoth said in an e-mail sent to employees.
Two of Citi’s Greenwich Street offices, as well as a Jersey City facility, are also temporarily off limits, the bank added.
Citi’s headquarters at 399 Park Ave. remained intact. But new CEO Michael Corbat told employees late Tuesday that it “will continue to use backup sites and work-from-home strategies as necessary.”
Morgan Stanley will also keep some offices off limits due to the storm, including: 111 Wall St.; 1 New York Plaza, which is located in a mandatory evacuation zone; and a satellite office in Jersey City that experienced flooding, according to sources.
Morgan Stanley’s headquarters building at 1585 Broadway was relatively unscathed and is expected to be open today.
Goldman Sachs told employees late Tuesday that it will re-open its headquarters at 200 West St., as well as the firm’s gleaming office tower at 30 Hudson St. in Jersey City, today.
“If you are able to travel safely to and from your office, please return to work [today],” Jeffrey Schroeder, Goldman’s chief administrative officer, said in an e-mail.
Joseph LaVorgna, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank, said he doesn’t expect trading to be heavy when markets re-open, because investors have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the Nov. 6 election results.
“Nobody wants to put on a lot of risk,” he said.