NYSE president discusses volatility, keeping markets open

“We feel very, very strongly that the markets need to remain open,” NYSE President Stacey Cunningham told Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network, in discussing the market volatility that resulted from the coronavirus pandemic and oil price war.

She gives two reasons: “Closing the market, one, does not stop market anxiety” and “two, people need to have access to their money.”

“We will get through this and the markets will recover,” Cunningham said.

The exchange, owned by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE -7.3%), is taking extra precautions in who it allows onto the trading floor, in cleaning and sanitizing the floor and thinning out the number of people on the trading floor.

Anybody entering the building who’s exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms gets tested and are asked to remain at home until the test results come back, she said.

So far the exchange hasn’t been asked to close the trading floor. And “we see very much during this really volatile period how helpful it is to have these people applying human judgment to these moments,” Cunningham said.

“If it gets to a point where we need to close the floor, we are ready to do that at any moment in time,” Cunningham said.

Instead, the NYSE would switch to 100% electronic markets. “We know how to run electronic markets. We run several electronic markets today,” she said.

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