Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
America Strikes Back: Moment of Silence on Wall Street in Honor of Coalition Operations
Aired October 08, 2001 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me now, Andy Serwer of "Fortune" magazine. I can't ever remember in the history of the market seeing a moment of silence honored in that way. I remember when some of the firefighters and police officers were honored right after the Septmber 11th attacks, you saw a little bit of that, but clearly not frozen in inaction like we just saw.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: And if you've ever been down there, Paula, you know that's one of the most high-energy places on the planet. So to get those guys to be that stone silent for that long really...
ZAHN: How about the gals, Andy?
SERWER: The gals, the men and the women. There are a lot of women on the exchange.
ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about futures. Futures are down. This does not bode well for the market today.
SERWER: Yes, it doesn't, the futures are down. We see some stocks are down already. I think the phrase that comes to mind here, Paula, is "unchartered waters." I mean, let's face it, this all knew for everyone, and Wall Street traders, just like the rest of us, are looking around the globe for clues to see how things are going to pan out today. Asia was down pretty sharply, particularly markets like Indonesia and the Philippines, where there is as Muslim population. There is fear of rioting and retaliation there. Japan was closed. Europe was down about 1 or 2 percent. Columbus Day, so the bond market is closed, but we're going to have volatile session, no matter what. And it's safe to say, stocks will be down somewhat.
ZAHN: You've done some homework, exploring what the Dow has done in previous use of military action. What did you find?
SERWER: That's right, it's actually very interesting. This is not like Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination. This is purely when the United States attacked. when we were the aggressor. We've got the Grenada invasion in 1983. The Dow was down just a bit the next day. Six months later, it was still down.
Then you see here the invasion of Panama in 1989. The Dow closed up a bit, and then six months later, we're up pretty nicely. The third one there is the Gulf War. Now this is the famous one. You may remember this. The Dow was up sharply the next day up 4.5 percent, and up very strongly six months later, 18.9 percent. But I would not look for that today, because there is fear of retaliation around the globe. When I was talking to traders, they said yes, it's sort of a positive that the shooting has started -- that's sort of the stock phrase they use on Wall Street -- but there's such a fear of the unknown and the retaliation factor, what would happen, what if someone struck in Europe or in Asia or somewhere in the United States, the disruption and the fear and the uncertainty is weighing on the market.
ZAHN: Yes, and the markets always hate instability of any kind.
SERWER: Absolutely.
And, you know, the administration keeps telling us that this is going to go on, and that is not music to Wall Street's ears.
ZAHN: All right, Andy. See you a little bit later on this morning.
New York is under extremely tight security today, even more so than before the airstrikes yesterday.
CNN's Bruce Francis joins us from outside the New York Stock Exchange.
Good morning, Bruce.
BRUCE FRANCIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
IT's a chilly morning here outside the New York Stock Exchange. The morning rush is over. Reports we've had indicated that security is a little bit tighter here outside the New York Stock Exchange. Of course the immediate block outside the exchange have been closed off since September 11th.
We saw quite long lines this morning going into the exchange. And a colleague of mine inside said she had to wait about 20 minutes extra. Though a lot of folks in neighborhood that we've spoken to indicate that things are pretty much the same, even normal, if you can use that word after September 11th. Trucks were -- some were inspected a little bit more closely this morning. But most people we spoke to on the street, from delivery truck operators to news stand owners, said they really didn't so much more of difficult time getting into the city and getting to their jobs.
Last night on "LARRY KING LIVE," Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that you could expect that the normal places where you would expect more security this morning would have more security, and we're certainly expecting that here around the exchange for the rest of the week.
Officially, the New York Stock Exchange says they do not comment on security matters, but it looks like things are fairly tight and they will remain so. Certainly, this area, one of very, very close scrutiny. Paula, back to you.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Bruce. Appreciate that report.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
