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Markets & Stocks
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Lightest trade day ends flat
Blackout still affecting Manhattan doesn't stop trading; some power stocks benefit.
August 15, 2003: 4:39 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Wall Street limped to a quiet close Friday with the lowest trading volume of the year in a city still essentially darkened by the nation's largest blackout.

The Dow Jones industrial average, the Nasdaq composite and the Standard and Poor's 500 index all closed fractions of a percentage point higher on the day, leaving them in positive territory for the week. The Dow closed at 9321.7, up 1.4 percent on the week. The Nasdaq closed at 1702.00, up 3.5 percent, while S&P closed at 990.67, up 1.3 percent.

Many traders had trouble getting to work with public transit very limited in the New York metropolitan area. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked the public to treat Friday as a "snow day" and not go to work unless it was essential. But he was at the NYSE to ring the opening bell Friday. (Click here for CNN.com's coverage of the blackout)

"Nobody is here. It's dead. It's a complete ghost town. It really is like coming in on the weekend," said Richard Koss, bond portfolio manager at Brown Brothers Harriman.

Among the stocks that attracted attention from investors were a number of companies that serve electric utilities, with the expectation that the blackout would bring new investment to the nation's power grid to avoid a repeat experience. But there were relatively few stocks that did much.

The NYSE ended up with just under 624 million shares traded, which was almost 20 percent fewer shares than traded in the half day of trading before the Independence Day holiday.

While the NYSE and Nasdaq were able to open on time and hold normal trading days, other exchanges operated on short hours with either a late open, early close or both. The American Stock Exchange actually started taking orders at 3:45 p.m., and was set to stay open until 4:15 to settle trades.

"By allowing a limited window for closing rotations, traders and investors will be able to meet obligations and make adjustments in accordance with today's expiration, and allow for an orderly closing price in Amex securities," said a statement from Amex President Peter Quick, explaining reason for the shortened trading day. "We believe this action is in the best interests of investors and the markets in general, and will allow us to proceed with a smooth opening on Monday morning.

The New York Mercantile Exchange, which is also based in southern Manhattan, also announced a delayed opening in some of its pits and closed early. The bond market closed at 2 p.m.

There was some griping from traders about the decision to even have a trading day, given the constraints on trades. But the expiration of stock and index options meant there would not be an early close for the market.

"Everyone wants to go home but we can't because of the expiration," a specialist at Sanford Bernstein said. "Everyone is reading the paper. The biggest complaint on the floor is about food because all the delis are closed."

Some of the traders present never got home Thursday evening. The blackout hit just after Thursday's market close and disrupted the rush-hour commute. One trader slept in front of a restaurant on Broadway near the exchange and showered at his health club before reporting for work.

But some traders had it good -- they slept at the NYSE's private club above the exchange floor, which had emergency power.

Some power stocks see gains

Among those stocks that did trade, the top percentage gainers on the big board were Quanta Services Inc. which installs, repairs and maintains electric transmission lines, as well as Shaw Group, one of the nation's largest engineering and construction companies serving electric utilities. Quanta closed up $1.52, or 28 percent, to $6.90. Shaw was up 98 cents, or 13 percent, to $8.26.

Active Power Inc., which makes systems to provide uninterrupted power supply, was among the largest gainers on the Nasdaq, rising 48 cents to $2.30, a rise of 26 percent.

The most active NYSE stock trading Friday was General Electric Co., which got about 14 percent of its first half revenue from its power systems unit, despite a recent downturn in the sector. Another active stock was independent power trader Calpine Corp. Both GE and Calpine were only slightly higher at the close.

Among utilities affected by the blackout, Consolidated Edison, New York's largest utility, and Ohio's FirstEnergy saw only slight declines, and New Jersey's Public Service Enterprise Group was slightly higher. Analysts said it was too early to estimate the earnings impact the blackout would have on these utilities.

"You make a lot of your money in a couple weeks of the year and these will be two important days because it's going to be hot. Then you'll have all the costs associated with the restoration," Chris Ellinghaus, an analyst at Williams Capital Group, told Reuters. "You will definitely feel it. Will (the cost) be one or two cents (per share), or will it be more than that? It's hard to say."

Airline stocks were generally lower at the close as the companies struggled to deal with customers stranded by hundreds of cancelled flights caused by the blackout.

As far as non-blackout affected stocks, computer maker Dell was among the most active issues on the Nasdaq, being up 95 cents, or 3 percent, to close at $32.34. Thursday afternoon the PC maker posted higher fiscal second-quarter earnings after the bell that met the estimates of analysts surveyed by First Call, and raised its sales forecast for the current quarter.  Top of page


Reuters contributed to this report




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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.