US financial markets close flat

NEW YORK: US financial markets reopened Wednesday after a historic two-day closure forced by superstorm Sandy, with the interruption having little impact on share prices themselves.

The markets ended mostly unchanged from Friday’s close.

While many market participants were still prevented by power and transport outages and flooding from getting back to their offices in the New York area, trading was generally smooth.

Stocks jumped at the opening, only to turn back downward as the day progressed.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 10.75 points (0.08 per cent) at 13,096.46.

The broad-based SandP 500 gained 0.22 (0.02 per cent) at 1,412.16, while the Nasdaq lost 10.72 (0.36 per cent) at 2,977.23.

The US financial hub of New York shut down completely Monday and Tuesday for the mega-hurricane, forcing other electronic markets for bonds, futures and derivatives around the country to close as well.

While power blackouts remained widespread in the New York area Wednesday, the markets sprang to life again fortified by onsite power generators and traders’ needs to adjust their portfolios on the last day of the month.

NYSE Euronext chief executive Duncan Niederauer told CNBC television that the exchange’s systems were working smoothly, and that even with the power outages, it could operate full-time on its own backup generators.

“It’s been very smooth… the market-making community is more than staffed enough to be open,” he said early in the session.

Traders said the absence of a number of players was evident.

“Given the formidable challenge of opening, I think it has gone fairly smoothly,” said Hugh Johnson of Hugh Johnson Advisors.

Even so, he added, “It’s a very disjointed day, and it doesn’t really reflect the views of all investors.”

“There are still a lot of investors, players, large active investors that haven’t been able to return to work.”

Stocks were generally mixed.

Ford Motor and General Motors shares were both sharply higher after beating expectations in their quarterly earnings; Ford gained 8.2 per cent and GM 9.5 per cent.

Property and casualty insurers were slightly lower. Analysts said they would largely be able to absorb the hits from billions of dollars in claims from the storm disaster.

Allstate lost 0.4 per cent and Travelers 0.9 per cent.

Disney fell 1.9 per cent after announcing it would buy “Star Wars” studio Lucasfilm for US$4 billion.

Facebook was 3.8 per cent lower as the ban on employees selling their shares lifted. — AFP