New York Stock Exchange to partially reopen trading floor after Memorial Day

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) will partially reopen its trading floor in lower Manhattan by Memorial Day as New York City, one of the areas of the U.S. most impacted by the coronavirus, inches toward reopening. 

“Thoughtful, measured reopening plans, prioritizing those businesses and people most affected by stay-at-home orders, will put us on a path to recovery. As for the NYSE, we will reopen our trading floor to a subset of floor brokers the day after Memorial Day,” Stacey Cunningham, president of the NYSE, wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The NYSE has been limited to electronic trading only since it closed its trading floor on March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Since then, tens of thousands more people have died of COVID-19 in New York City. 

As of Thursday, New York has reported 348,192 cases and 27,617 deaths, most of them clustered near the New York City region. The state’s stay-at-home order is in place until May 15. 

“New York’s heart beats to the rhythm of commerce,” Cunningham wrote. “It has been slowed in the past, as on 9/11, when the terrorist attacks closed the NYSE, founded in 1792, for four trading days—and Minas Shoe Repair, founded in 1977, which needed more than a year to reopen.”

Cunningham’s announcement comes the same day the stock market rebounded to break a three-day losing streak despite the Labor Department’s report that nearly 3 million more people submitted claims for unemployment benefits last week.