NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the action in the financial markets (all times local):
1:40 p.m.
Like many Americans, stock traders who normally crowd the floor of the New York Stock Exchange are having to adjust to working from home.
The NYSE temporarily closed its trading floor in lower Mahattan Monday and shifted to all-electronic trading as a precautionary step after two people tested positive for COVID-19.
“For today, I’m sitting here still watching the market, still conveying my opinion to customers,” says Peter Tuchman, a floor trader at the NYSE for Quattro Securities. “Things are sort of seamless, as far a speed and execution go.”
Homebound traders can do everything they can do at the NYSE except for broker-to-broker trades, says Jonathan D. Corpina, senior managing partner at Meridian Equity Partners.
“There’s no workaround for that at this point,” says Corpina, who was working from his home office. He says most NYSE traders are also working from home.
One notable difference from working at the NYSE: Corpina doesn’t have to comply with the exchange’s requirement that traders don a jacket and tie.
“I don’t need to wear it,” he says, referring to the jacket. “But it’s propped up on the back of my chair here.”
Several thousand brokers and others used to crowd the trading floor of the NYSE as recently as the 1990s. But in the years since, the rise of electronic trading grew to dominate the action on Wall Street. These days, there are about 500 floor traders at the NYSE.
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Noon
Boeing is suspending operations at its Seattle area facilities due to the spread of coronavirus in the area, where dozens of people have been killed.
Operations would be reduced beginning Wednesday, the company said in a statement, and production would be suspended for a two weeks.
“This necessary step protects our employees and the communities where they work and live,” said Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun.
The aerospace ginat employs more than 60,000 people in Washington state.
Boeing’s stock rose 8% to $102.71. The stock has fallen 69% this month as airlines make deep cuts to their flights due to widening travel bans and plummeting demand for air travel because of the cornonavirus outbreak. That has led investors to anticipate lower demand for new planes.
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9:00 a.m.
U.S. stock futures are making a dramatic swing higher after the Federal Reserve announced it will lend to small and large businesses and local governments as well as extend its bond buying programs.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down about 500 points before the Fed announced its actions. The Dow futures swung nearly 1,000 points and as of 8:30 a.m. were up 422 points. Futures for the S&P 500 showed a gain of 50 points.
The announcement Monday is part of the Fed’s ongoing efforts to support the flow of credit through an economy ravaged by the viral outbreak.
