Reuters: Bericht z. Stromausfall und Finanzmärkte

verfasst von kingsolomon, 15.08.2003, 00:00

-->Blackouts stun U.S. financial markets
Thursday August 14, 5:45 pm ET
By Amanda Cooper


NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - U.S. financial markets were stunned on Thursday in late trade as blackouts struck the East Coast of the United States and Canada, including New York City, shutting down dealing rooms across the region.

"We do not have any systems up, so we cannot trade because there is no where to trade to. We still have some voice brokers, so we have some idea where things are," said a trader at a major European bank in New York who declined to be identified.

The dollar dropped and bond yields tumbled in a flight-to-safety rush as witnesses reported power outages hitting New York, Detroit, Cleveland in the United States and Toronto and Ottawa in Canada.

U.S. power regulators said the outage was not caused by an attack but by an outage at a Manhattan power plant which destabilized the power grid, although dealers' initial fear had been that of sabotage.

But later, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also said the outage was triggered by a problem near Niagara falls at the U.S.-Canadian border that cascaded down through New York State as far south as New Jersey and as far west as Ohio.

"California was not affected by the power outage. But this is creating panic," Enrico Caruso, chief dealer at Tempest Asset Management in Tustin, California, said."Trading is still going on here on the West Coast. But I know three banks in Manhattan have been evacuated. We still don't know if it's terrorism."

Emergency power systems kicked in in dealing rooms around Wall Street, giving traders some comfort. But without the aid of their trusty electronic trading screens, several resorted to the old-fashioned telephone to wind up the last minutes of trade.

Traffic ground to a halt around New York's busy Times Square, where the out-sized electronic billboards went black and puzzled office workers poured on to the streets.

YIELDS DROP, DOLLAR DOWN

Yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note (US10YT=RR) were last down at 4.45 percent, up nearly a point in price as investors scooped up safe-haven debt.

"We're trying, we're on auxiliary power but we're struggling to do what we can," one fixed-income trader said.

In the meantime, investor jitters over the blackout pushed the dollar lower against the euro (EUR=). The greenback was last quoted at 1.1270.

"People are trying to figure out right now. The key issue is, is it a power outage or is it something else. Bonds are bid and people are selling the dollar," said Paul Podolsky, currency strategist at Fleet Global Rate Markets in Boston, where power was on and operations were normal.

"We can talk with brokers in New Jersey, but not in New York. The New York brokers have all gone for the day," Podolsky said.

Sources at other investment banks said their dealing systems were running smoothly on emergency power.

"We've been talking to other dealers, and we're all pretty-lighthearted about this. We're just talking about where to go get drinks this afternoon," said a trader of mortgage-backed bonds.

However, news of the blackout did not rattle all markets. The closing bell had already rung in U.S. equity markets, while activity in other markets such as U.S. municipal bonds had already largely wound up for the day.

When asked about whether the U.S. bond market would begin trading at its normal schedule on Friday, Michael Williams, an executive at the Bond Market Association (News - Websites) in Washington, D.C. said:"We just don't know."

(Additional reporting by Victoria Thieberger, Dan Wilchins, Daniel Bases, Gertrude Chavez, Richard Leong and Richard Bravo in New York and Ros Krasny in Chicago)

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gesamter Thread:

• Reuters: Bericht z. Stromausfall und Finanzmärkte - kingsolomon, 15.08.2003, 00:00
  • Treauries steigen - BondTrader nervös - kingsolomon, 15.08.2003, 00:29
    • Re: Treauries steigen - BondTrader nervös - chiron, 15.08.2003, 00:39
      • Re: Treauries steigen - BondTrader nervös - Euklid, 15.08.2003, 08:59