The exchange founded under a Buttonwood tree will be closing its floor.
As per President Stacey Cunningham, the world’s most famous stock exchange has opted to close its physical trading floor after two people tested positive for COVID 19 at screenings it had set up this week.
This is the first time the physical trading floor of the Big Board has ever shut independently while electronic trading continues.
“While we are taking the precautionary step of closing the trading floors, we continue to firmly believe the markets should remain open and accessible to investors,” tweeted Stacey Cunningham, President of NYSE. “All NYSE markets will continue to operate under normal trading hours despite the closure of the trading floors.”
Trading and regulatory oversight of all NYSE-listed securities will continue without interruption.
All-electronic trading will begin with Monday’s market open. The facilities to be closed comprise the NYSE equities trading floor in New York, NYSE American Options trading floor in New York, and NYSE Arca Options trading floor in San Francisco. The decision to temporarily close the trading floors represents a precautionary step to protect the health and well-being of employees and the floor community in response to COVID-19.
“NYSE’s trading floors provide unique value to issuers and investors, but our markets are fully capable of operating in an all-electronic fashion to serve all participants, and we will proceed in that manner until we can re-open our trading floors to our members,” Cunningham said in a statement. “While we are taking the precautionary step of closing the trading floors, we continue to firmly believe the markets should remain open and accessible to investors. All NYSE markets will continue to operate under normal trading hours despite the closure of the trading floors.”
The NYSE has robust, regularly tested contingency plans in place to initiate fully electronic trading on its exchanges that have physical trading floors. On the NYSE’s equities market, the Exchange’s Designated Market Makers will connect to the exchange electronically to provide liquidity in their stocks, however floor broker order types will be unavailable. On the NYSE’s options markets, electronic trading will continue normally but open-outcry trading will be suspended with the closure of the options trading floors.
Intercontinental Exchange will continue to monitor events to determine the appropriate time to re-open the NYSE trading floors.
