Readying for Sandy: US stock markets shut, firms defer earnings

US stock trading will be closed on Monday and possibly Tuesday in response to Hurricane Sandy, NYSE Euronext said late on Sunday.

NYSE Euronext, which runs the New York Stock Exchange, had previously said that electronic trading would remain open and that only the exchange’s trading floor would close.

In a statement, the company said that “the dangerous conditions developing as a result of Hurricane Sandy will make it extremely difficult to ensure the safety of our people and communities, and safety must be our first priority”.[caption id=“attachment_506212” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  With Hurricane Sandy approaching, the Long Island Railroad announced the suspension of their service on 28 October 2012. Getty Images[/caption]

The New York Stock Exchange said it will close its trading floor on Monday for the first time since Hurricane Gloria in 1985, though stocks will still trade electronically.

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Meanwhile, corporates are also gearing up for the storm.

Drugmaker Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and power companies Entergy Corp (ETR.N) and NRG Energy Inc (NRG.N) said they would postpone releasing quarterly earnings results because of the hurricane approaching the US Northeast.

Pfizer and Entergy had been due to report their third-quarter results on Tuesday. NRG was scheduled to release its results on Wednesday.

Pfizer rescheduled the release of its results and its conference call with analysts until Thursday, 1 November, citing “the expected severe weather conditions associated with Hurricane Sandy”.

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Entergy pushed its conference call back to 5 November. It said it was making the move in consideration of those preparing for the storm.

NRG rescheduled its third-quarter earnings call until 2 November.

Other companies, such as energy company Anadarko Corp (APC.N), are going forward with their earnings releases as planned. Anadarko will announce its results on Monday afternoon, according to a company spokesman.

In addition, the United Nations, Broadway theaters, New Jersey casinos, schools up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and a myriad corporate events are all being shut by the storm.

Hurricane Sandy, which could become the largest storm ever to hit the United States, is set to bring much of the East Coast, including New York and Washington, to a virtual standstill in the next few days with battering winds, flooding and the risk of widespread power outages.

About 50 million people are in the path of the massive storm, which has already killed 66 people in the Caribbean and is expected to hit the US Eastern Seaboard on Tuesday morning.

While the storm does not pack the punch of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, forecasters said it could be the largest in size when it strikes land. At the moment, Sandy’s winds stretched some 835 km and churned up 12 ft (3.6-m) seas spanning more than 1,600 km, meteorologists said.

New York and other cities and towns closed their transit systems and schools and ordered residents of low-lying areas to evacuate before a storm surge that could reach as high as 11 ft (3.4 m).

Reuters