Nasdaq shuts Philly trading room amid coronavirus, opens Navy Yard backup center
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer/Inquirer.com
The Nasdaq stock market’s trading floor, in the FMC tower at 29th and Walnut Streets. in University City, closed Monday until further notice, as Mayor Kenney and local officials across the U.S. warned large employers to shut, in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 and ease expected pressure on hospital intensive-care units.
Stock options -- which are bets on future stock prices -- will continue to trade electronically, and up to a dozen staffers will oversee Nasdaq PHLX Options Market trades from a back-up center on League Island Boulevard at the former Philadelphia Navy Yard in South Philly, said Joseph G. Christinat, a Nasdaq spokesman in New York. But most of the 200 staffers who normally report to the center, and traders who work on one of the last “open outcry” floors in the U.S., are staying home or trading from remote locations, as are staff on Wall Street and other world financial centers.
The move comes as the global securities markets continue to lose value on fears that coronavirus closings will lead to global recession. IHS Markit, an economic forecasting service with offices in Andover, Mass., and Philadelphia, projects the U.S. economy will shrink by more than 5 percent in the second quarter, after years of steady growth since the 2008-2009 recession.
The S&P 500 average of major-company stocks dropped more than 20 percent in early March on fears that coronavirus will slow the economy, gained almost half of that back in a Friday rally, and was down as much as 12 percent in Monday trading, after the Federal Reserve on Sunday cut the interest rates it charges banks to near zero. That move, designed to stimulate businesses, was seen by some investors as a sign of desperation.
Read more: https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/nasdaq-options-fmc-coronavirus-backup-navy-yard-20200316.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
