U.S. Equity Markets to Reopen Wednesday

The opening bell will ring again in New York at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday as usual after a two-day hiatus triggered by Hurricane Sandy that pounded New York City.

NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, said that floor trading would be fully operational. Nasdaq OMX Group (NASDAQ:NDAQ), which operates the electronic Nasdaq Stock Market, also said that marketplace would be open for business.

"We are pleased to be able to return to normal trading tomorrow," said NYSE Euronext Chief Executive Officer Duncan Niederauer. "Our building and systems were not damaged and our people have been working diligently to ensure that we have a smooth opening tomorrow." 

The New York Stock Exchange is located on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, an area that experienced significant flooding resulting from storm surges. A decision was made late Sunday night to close trading completely because of an evacuation order from New York City.

The move to reopen trading comes after two days of intense contingency planning for the Big Board. A plan called “Print N” that would have shifted all trading in NYSE-listed stocks to the company’s electronic exchange called NYSE Arca beginning Monday was panned by market participants, causing NYSE to make a swift turnaround and suspend trading that day and the following one.

The NYSE sent market participants a new contingency plan late Monday that will go into effect should it remain impossible to run trading from the NYSE floor. In this plan, NYSE Arca would open and operate as the primary market.

U.S. stock-index futures, which trade on the CME Group’s (NYSE:CME) electronic exchange, have been trading overnight, but then closing during what would be regular-day trading. It was not immediately clear whether futures tied to equities would begin trading on Wednesday as well. While these derivatives tend to be fairly thinly traded, they provide investors with a snapshot of market sentiment. Stock-index futures were slightly lower Tuesday morning.