The New York Stock Exchange will reopen for regular trading tomorrow after being shut down for two days because of Hurricane Sandy.
The exchange said in a statement this afternoon that its building and trading floor are fully operational.
Today marked the first time since 1888 that the NYSE remained closed for two consecutive days due to weather.
The last time was due to a massive blizzard.
Sections of Manhattan are still inundated with water and power is shut off to thousands of people and businesses.
US stock markets closed yesterday due to weather for the first time in 27 years.
It was the first time since 1888 that the exchange was closed for two consecutive days because of weather. The cause then was a blizzard that left drifts as high as 40 feet in the streets.
The last time the New York Stock Exchange had an unplanned closing was after the attacks of September 2001.
Bond markets closed early yesterday - at noon - as winds and waves from Sandy lashed the Eastern US seaboard.
NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX Group, the largest two US exchange operators, said they intend to reopen tomorrow, conditions permitting. The bond markets will also close today, with traders aiming to reopen tomorrow.
Wednesday is a key trading day because it marks the end of the month, when traders price portfolios.
With New York still to feel the full impact of yesterday's storm, fears remained that wind damage and possible power outages could test the ability of markets to reopen. New York's mass transit system, which most employees use to get to work, also remained shut and it was unclear when service would be restored.
Fierce winds and flooding were felt along hundreds of miles of Atlantic coastline and heavy snows were forecast farther inland at higher elevations as the centre of the storm moved ashore along the coast of southern New Jersey or Delaware.
The broad effects of the market shutdown were beginning to become more apparent by yesterday evening, as analysts estimated banks and trading firms could lose tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
Some companies postponed their quarterly earnings reports, and banks closed branches in the Northeast, while promising to waive certain fees in hurricane-threatened areas.
Disaster modeling company Eqecat said the storm is likely to cause insured losses of $5 billion to $10 billion, and economic losses of $10 billion to $20 billion.
The trading closure also threatened to delay IPOs of at least six companies, while Facebook employees were prevented from selling shares in the social media company after a "lock-up" on trading expired.
As the superstorm began battering the US east coast yesterday, many Wall Street employees stayed home. Major Wall Street banks had planned to open with skeleton staffing, but with the stock and options markets closed and the bond market closing at noon, many people said they had little to do.
Market participants and regulators decided late on Sunday night to shut the stock and options markets, reversing a plan to keep electronic trading going yesterday, leaving some people complaining about confusion.
The biggest problem with the New York Stock Exchange's initial plan to trade exclusively over its ARCA electronic system was that the contingency plan that it had created in March had not been vetted by many brokerage firms, sources familiar with the situation said.
The decision to close the stock and options market came late on Sunday night after SIFMA, the Wall Street trade group, held a conference call to debate whether to close, said a brokerage executive, who requested anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the media.
A NYSE spokesman declined to comment on friction with the brokerage community over the on-again, off-again decision to open trading during the storm.
Yesterday, the industry tried to avoid a repeat of the confusion. A decision to close the markets today had been announced by early afternoon, after an industry-wide call that included regulators, broker-dealers and executives.
Conference Board delays consumer confidence index
The US Conference Board is delaying the release of its consumer confidence index for October until Thursday because of Superstorm Sandy.
The survey was scheduled to be released today, but the Conference Board said it decided on the delay to help assure the safety of its staff and people who follow the index.
The consumer confidence index is watched closely because consumer spending drives nearly 70% of US economic activity. The index has fluctuated sharply this year. It has fallen five times in the past nine months, hitting a low for the year in August before rising in September.
Sandy grounds over 15,000 US flights
Superstorm Sandy grounded more than 15,000 flights across the Northeast and the globe, and it could be days before some passengers can get where they are going.
According to the flight-tracking service FlightAware, more than 6,000 flights were cancelled today. That brings the tally of flights cancelled because of the storm to more than 15,000. Over 500 flights scheduled for tomorrow were also cancelled.
The three big New York airports were closed today by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Stewart International Airport remained open, but airlines had suspended operations there.
New York has the nation's busiest airspace, with about one-quarter of all US flights travelling to or from there each day. Cancellations in the city can dramatically impact travel in other cities.
Delays rippled across the US, affecting travellers in cities from San Francisco to Atlanta. Others attempting to fly out of Europe and Asia also were stuck.
The grounding of the flights surpassed those of a major winter storm in early 2011 that forced 14,000 flights to be scrapped over four days.
Even if storm damage is minor it could be a week before operations are normal at major East Coast airports, said Angela Gittens, director general of the Airports Council International, a trade group for airports worldwide.
US airline JetBlue Airways cancelled 1,200 flights from Sunday until today. The airline is hoping to resume flights at its Kennedy airport hub tomorrow, but is worried about flooding of the airport's runways since they are all basically at sea level and near bodies of water, according to Rob Maruster, the company's chief operating officer.
Delta Air Lines has cancelled 2,100 flights over the three days. American Airlines has scrapped 1,000 flights, including 260 on regional affiliate American Eagle.
The impact on airline's bottom lines is unclear. Many of the customers on flights currently being cancelled will reschedule later on, so the airlines will still collect the fares. Travellers overseas could wait days to get to the east coast of the US.
Aer Lingus has cancelled some flights from Dublin to the US today. Frankfurt airport cancelled 12 incoming and nine outgoing flights because of the storm, adding to 12 it scrapped yesterday.
Spain's biggest airports in Madrid and Barcelona axed 19 flights, on top of 13 cancelled the day before. British Airways cut another 11 return flights to and from the East Coast today, adding to 20 on Monday, when London's Heathrow airport cancelled a total of 59 flights to and from the US.
Air India said its daily flights to Newark and JFK had been halted since Sunday.
