Minutes. All other markets will remain open with scheduled break between 5 15 p. M. And 6 15 eastern time. We see red arrows in europe. Well talk about things driving that action later on. We have your bases covered on Hurricane Sandy and what is at stake for businesses and your family. We begin with scott cohn in battery park. Scott . Reporter good morning, melissa. This was completely dry just a couple hours ago. What you are looking at here is high tide. This isnt storm surge to speak of yet. It is high tide exacerbated by the full moon and somewhat exacerbated by sandy. If you fast forward about 12 hours from now when the next high tide comes in and the storm is coming ashore, add about a foot of water onto this and then you start to look at what manhattan is facing. Its not that much drier inland from here in this socalled zone a where 375,000 people live. Some very important businesses and Financial Capital of the world is located which is why they are not trading stocks today. It will not be safe to move around as the day wears on. Again, just to orient you, were at the lower tip of manhattan out there is lady liberty. The waters are looking very angry. We have not had a lot of effects of the storm yet because its still a couple hundred miles further down the east coast. And so this is just a sense of what kind of water that were looking at. The water the main issue as the storm comes in and pushes water into new york harbor into Long Island Sound and creates these issues. Add to that the wind. Add to that potential Power Outages and thats what you are looking at. You heard it is the first weather related closure for a full day at the New York Stock Exchange since 1985. If they close again tomorrow, which is currently the plan, its the first twoday weather related closure of nyse since 1988. We know it will affect tens of millions of people. Your live shot so far is quickly turning into the talk of the morning as we continue to watch whats happening in Lower Manhattan. Scott cohn in Battery Park City. Thanks. Were displaced and what were seeing in scotts shot is a big reason for it. It makes a lot of sense for everyone to clear out because dont need me to tell you which way the wind blows but its clear that it makes sense to close. I remember in 1985. I had gone to goldman that morning. Young guy working at goldman. We thought the stock market was going to open. Looked like it would open. There was trading and next thing you know i was playing cards. The question is if you were just to close the physical Trading Floor but keep electronic trading open, how robust would volumes be and how wimpy would markets be and disservice to investors if you maintain that market open. Theres a big emphasis on market stability right now and of course on liquidity and volatility as well. There was a real issue out there that with not much participants in the market with main Trading Floor closed, people having trouble getting in and then people having trouble getting out, whats the risk reward ratio and risk got higher as people were unable to get in. Lets bring in duncan on the phone with us now. Are you there . Im here. Thank you, duncan. Thanks for joining us. The important thing is could you walk us through the Decision Making process here as you heard there was a decision made yesterday to close the nyse floor and keep electronic trading open and then later in the evening there was decision by everybody to close all of the exchanges. Can you sort of give us a little on the back story there . Sure. Good morning. I encourage you all to stay safe and i think this was the right decision we made. Let me just walk you through what happened yesterday. As i talked to you yesterday, bob, earlier in the day we made the call to close the building but open markets electronically using a contingency plan. I think it became clear to us quickly after making that decision that there was an overwhelming consensus from the majority of participants that they would prefer that the markets be closed entirely as you hinted at the stability and volatility issues but the key point from our point of view was electronic or not, the firms are all going to have to staff themselves and therefore endanger their people. So i think the consensus was around safety concerns first and foremost giving escalating evacuation messages and a concern that if firms would interact with our contingency tech nol for the first time in production, probably not a great idea either given how hard it would be to mobilize staff over the weekend. We coordinated with other exchanges and late last night made the right call in shutting the markets entirely. This is electronic trading. Its not robotic trading. There are thousands of people on trading desks at morgan stanley, merrill lynch, goldman sachs, who have to come in and be part of the market as well and those people had real problems getting in. That was the main decision, correct . Its easy for us to say we can operate remotely from chicago or somewhere in a data center, that isnt respectful of everyone elses needs in the marketplace because they would have to staff and put people in harms way. I think the spirit that everybody approached it with last night led to the right decision albeit later in the day than we all probably would have likeded ed td to have made it. I have calls with the industry participants again starting after i hang up with you guys. I think well announce our intentions for tomorrow a lot earlier today probably shortly after noon would be our goal. In weather reports are accurate, ill agree with mr. Cramer, none of us is a meteorologist, its hard to imagine well be open tomorrow if these reports are even close to correct. Duncan, im curious, if one would go down to the New York Stock Exchange right now, what sorts of preparations have the exchange made to protect against physical damage and are you concerned about physical damage with servers located in new jersey. I think the data center is secure. Its not in a flood zone. Its a fortified building. Were not worried about that. Were keeping a close eye on it. In terms of Lower Manhattan, we have taken precautions that others have in the flood zone. The building is obviously not its right on the edge of zone a and were not too worried about it given what it would take to breach the building there. We do have a Security Team there this morning. A couple of us are probably going to be in there today. Larry is in the city. Hell walk over to the exchange later morning just to do a site check. I think were also going to work hard in the next 24 hours because we do as an industry have our eye on wednesday given that it is monday end. Worst Case Scenario we hope we hope we would open on wednesday. This is a competitive marketplace. You have a war between nasdaq and you. Was there anybody sunday night who just decided this is our chance to be able to show customers that we do not really exist as a physical presence. We can get it on and basically trump the other exchange because it doesnt seem like theres love and peace talk between you guys. Im happy to report while everything you said is correct, theres not a lot of love and peace talk, everybody arises above it in a situation like this, jim. Im happy to report there was not any indication of any calls last night that people were thinking about their own pnl or business model. Trying to make a decision that was right for all of the market participants. We ended up doing that. My bias is to keep markets open but this is a pretty easy decision from our point of view in the end. Its not worth putting people in danger. Its no time to be a hero. Its silly. What happened where initially there was a take it would open . When we were at goldman in 1985, the issue is theres no internet or real connection. We didnt have these things. We have internet and people who say we dont even need new york city anymore. How about the out of town guys who thought this was a great chance to trump new york . Again, we got none of that from the other venues that are located outside of manhattan. There was no talk about them staying open. It goes back to what bob said. If a couple of the major markets are closed, i think youre doing everyone else a disservice if just a few thinly traded venues which would even are more thinly traded. People involved arent involved and i think you are just asking for more instability and more volatility and i am happy to report that no one was signing up for that. What i underestimated was when we made the first call yesterday which was entirely my decision, i think i was underestimating how much people would have to staff to participate if we were operating electronically. When it became clear to us they did not want to send a lot of their people into harms way, then i think we quickly reversed field and as i said communicated as quickly as we could last night albeit later than i would have liked. Duncan, its bob again. There are two parts to this. The first is i would have liked to see what happened when you initiated the contingency plan because i like to see what happens when you let them scale up here and of course the assumption being they are robust enough to handle volume that would normally go to the New York Stock Exchange. Are you confident of that number one . Number two, what do you say to critics who say this is an indication that of course electronic trading has fully come into its own even if the nyse wants to do it and what is the commitment to nyse of keeping the floor and having floor trading. I dont think this was about that, bob. You have a contingency plan as you said. The last time we had to implement one of these for weather related outage was more than a quarter century ago. If we have to do Something Like this and instead of replicating the floor environment trying to figure out where to move people to, we opt to do it electronically for a day or two doesnt make a statement or change my view about how we feel about the floor. You know how i feel about it. Its an important point of the model. In an emergency situation, do you what you need to do to keep the markets open. In terms of that, there is no doubt it could handle volume. Until you test it in production, youre not going to know. So that was going to be the first production test to see and our guess is it would have gone fine. Who knows. You also would not have been likely to see the volume and volatility you would have seen as a lot of people simply werent going to participate today if we had tried to open as an industry. Have you started to give thought one thing about flooding, you never really know what the extent of the damage is going to be. What if we go into wednesday . What if people start missing out on their last chances to unload options . We are thinking that far ahead as an industry and although we cant predict the weather, carl, i think its really, really, really important for the industry that we find a way to get open on wednesday given everything you just said. Its month end. Its options expiration. Theres no doubt that we need to figure out a way to get open on wednesday. Almost regardless of what the damage is. Lets take that one day at a time. Im happy to stay if close touch with you guys. Well be making a decision as an industry this afternoon. Im sure i or someone will report that to you guys. And then one of us can get on the phone with you tomorrow morning at the same time if you would like to give people an update. That sounds like you say keep your hotel room tonight. I think thats a good idea. For tonight and tomorrow night too if you can. Appreciate your time this morning. Be safe. You too. Thanks for bringing it to us. The key take aways are good chance closed tomorrow. Wednesday come hell or high water theyre going to do their best to open up. This was the right decision. Were all electronic they should open, its not. Its people that are thousands of people that are stranded. How about the no macho man thing. I was looking for macho. Post office attitude. Didnt go for that. Is post office open today . I dont know. Do i look like a post office guy . A quick question when it comes to trading of u. S. Stocks overseas, does that happen if u. S. Markets are closed . I dont see why not. I wouldnt think that would stop that. There are u. S. Stocks listed on overseas. Trading down in germany. Someone didnt sell something over the weekend. My favorite is how everyone talks about it being an illiquid day when we are about to get pounded by liquid. Well get more on Hurricane Sandy including a live interview with the ceo of expedia. Travelers arent the only ones keeping an eye on the hurricane. The latest on whats at strike for energy, refineries and gas prices. One more look at equity Index Futures which just closed at this very second. You have made your bets. Back in a moment. Dont go away. A short word thats a tall order. Up your game. Up the ante. And if you stumble, you get back up. Up isnt easy, and we ought to know. Were in the business of up. Everyday delta flies a quarter of Million People while investing billions improving everything from booking to baggage claim. 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To give you a sense of relatively, here we are at 14 feet above sea level. Just a few feet separating where that storm surge is expected to go. Now, if this does make landfall on the jersey shore as it is expected to, it would be very rare occurrence. Only three storms have ever touched down and made their first landfall in new jersey. Two unnamed storms in 1878 and 1903 and then hurricane irene became a Tropical Storm when it hit just last year. Now, hurricane irene caused roughly 15 billion in damage all across the northeast. The state of new jersey alone got 275 million in federal assistance most going to homeowners and flooding private insurers. Here in cape may, commercial fishing is the big business. A billion dollars in revenue for new jersey. Further up Atlantic City of course we know all of those casinos, 12 flagship institutions across the boardwalk are closed and halloween parties canceled. Atlantic city is lower lying. That will be a very, very big hit. The place to watch. Evacuated yesterday by 4 00 p. M. And Chris Christie declaring a state of emergency there because of how bad conditions are supposed to get there. Its only 9 00 a. M. Right now. You can see how bad its getting. The waves are spilling up into the dunes and there is flooding in the street. Theres structural damage just a couple blocks away that well check out. Definitely a strengthening storm here on the shore of new jersey. Carl . Kayla, thank you. Well come back to you a lot today. Kayla tausche in cape may. 60 Million People affected by this. Its a sixth of the country. I want to say that i am not the reason why kayla is down there in harms way. It is not my fault. No one would want to be held responsible for that. Somehow im her father. Its not my daughter. Shes not down there. Could you check my house in ocean grove where i have already written it off if youre down there. Reporter send me the address, jim. Ill walk over there and see how it looks. Were here. We might as well, right. I never felt it was such bad idea to have a house that was all my life i wanted a house on the beach. Great. I got it on the beach. Reporter its completely empty but cape may for those who have been here has this very creepy font. I actually tweeted a picture of one of the street signs yesterday. Its like a Haunted House font. You have an empty town, you have a hurricane, you have halloween. It really is the perfect storm here it feels like. Dont be scared. Thanks a lot, kayla. The times has a big piece about how people after irene which turned out to be nothing are taking this in sort of a relaxed attitude. Storms of the century every year it seems which can lead to complacency. You continue to hear that. There it is. Very few people learned the lesson from irene in terms of what occurred. I live in summit. We were hit badly. Some fatalities. I come back and shocked to see the same level of preparation there was last year which is not a lot. You never know. Lets not forget last year upstate new york actually bore the brunt with massive flooding in vermont. Those towns that are still frankly digging out and trying to restore what was badly damaged there. We simply have no idea. Thats not including the snow expected to come on top of it. Two feet in some parts of the appalachian mountains. My daughter is in new orleans. She works for habitat for humanity. They are still building homes in ward 5 for areas that have been trashed. She caulks. Did you give her caulking skills . No one can caulk like i do. I do hold the gun the wrong way and caulked my face. The damage just doesnt seem to go away. Heres an interesting statistic. From the deckers Conference Call last week, maker of uggs, the warmer year on record since Record Keeping began in the 1880s. Those in denial i know, david, you have often questioned global warming. Right now im channeling it out of the chair. What is that like . You dont want to know. Is the Tea Party Alive and well . I think we should stop