Stock traders hope NEW YORK >> The nation's stock markets hope to resume trading as early as Friday after a three-day shutdown that followed the terrorist attack that devastated the World Trade Center.
for Friday opening
Trading in bonds
and future contracts
will begin tomorrowAssociated Press
New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard A. Grasso said at an afternoon news conference today that pending a meeting tomorrow with officials of financial markets, big Wall Street firms and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the stock markets hoped to resume trading on Friday, but no later than Monday.
Treasury Undersecretary Peter Fisher, who also spoke at the news conference, said government bond trading would resume at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Earlier, officials of the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where futures contracts are traded, said they would resume trading tomorrow.
Grasso said the securities officials wanted to avoid doing anything that would interrupt the recovery operation at the trade center site, located several blocks from the NYSE.
"Our first and primary concern is restoring the public's confidence that this marketplace ... will be up and functioning -- and no one can interrupt that resolve," he said.
The announcement followed a meeting of securities officials, including SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, who also spoke at the news conference.
Analysts were hesitant to predict the effect the tragedy would have on stocks. When trading resumes, the shutdown on the NYSE, the nation's oldest exchange, will have been the longest since a nearly four month closing during World War I.