US Stock Markets Expect To Open On Wednesday

US stock markets are expected to reopen on Wednesday for the first time in two days after Hurricane Sandy squalled New York City with the worst storm the city has seen in 75 years.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is expected to open, though it may need to operate using fully electronic trading, NYSE Euronext said. Nasdaq OMX’s Nasdaq Stock Market and BATS Exchanges will both be operating as well on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Larry Leibowitz, NYSE Euronext Chief Operating Officer, spoke with Reuters in an interview:

“We are shooting hard to open tomorrow and fully expect to do so, but lots of firms are going to have either connectivity problems, or other things, so we are urging all firms to get out there and test their back-up.”

Although it was not easy to make the decision to close the trading floors, it had to be done because so many traders, brokers, and market participants would not be able to work, The Los Angeles Timesreports.

It had been 27 years since the US stock markets had closed due to poor weather conditions.

The NYSE, which makes up about a fourth of US stock market trading volume, is seeing whether routing trades can be done through an electronic platform. Typically, half of NYSE’s trading is done on the trading floor at 11 Wall Street.

Stock futures continued to dwindle, The Los Angeles Timesreported:

“Dow Jones industrial average futures dropped 61 points, or 0.5%, to 12,993, Bloomberg News reported. Futures on the Standard Poor’s 500 Index expiring in December retreated 0.4% to 1,402.4.”

The next week will be a big one for traders as the US stock markets reopen on Wednesday. October’s unemployment report will be released on Friday.