The New York Stock Exchange closed temporarily as a result of coronavirus concerns.
Photo: Kearney Ferguson/Associated PressThe New York Stock Exchange will reopen its iconic trading floor later this month, two months after the coronavirus pandemic forced its closure.
Only a limited number of traders will return to the floor when it reopens May 26, and they will be required to wear masks and abide by social-distancing rules to limit the spread of Covid-19, NYSE President Stacey Cunningham said in an opinion article published on The Wall Street Journal’s website Thursday that unveiled the plan.
Among the protective measures: People coming to work on the floor won’t be allowed to take New York City public transit to get there and must submit to temperature checks to enter the building, Ms. Cunningham wrote.
Later Thursday, the NYSE released a three-page memo spelling out the requirements for coming back to the trading floor. Traders will need to maintain a 6-foot distance from one another and “avoid shaking hands and unnecessary physical contact,” it said.
“These rigid measures will ease as the situation in the city improves,” Ms. Cunningham wrote in the opinion article. “They may become more stringent if the virus surges again.”
Traders returning to the NYSE floor also will need to sign a waiver acknowledging they understand the risks of getting infected, people familiar with the matter said.
The NYSE shut down its floor on March 23 after two people at the exchange tested positive for coronavirus.
Several other exchanges have recently signaled plans to reopen floors that they shut in March as the virus spread. Cboe Global Markets Inc. said earlier this month it could reopen its Chicago options trading floor as soon as June 1, one day after the expiration of Illinois’s stay-at-home order.
CME Group Inc., which operates futures and options trading pits in Chicago, said it could begin to reopen its floor in phases no earlier than three weeks after expiration of the order. CME also plans to require traders to sign a waiver acknowledging the risks of catching Covid-19 in an open-outcry trading pit.
The NYSE’s floor—often featured as a backdrop in financial-news broadcasts—has experienced a huge reduction in its population since its heyday in the early 2000s, when thousands of traders, brokers and support personnel came there daily. The floor’s typical daily population had dropped to several hundred before the floor closure.
Now, it will look even quieter when it reopens. So-called “designated market makers,” who stand at posts in the center of the floor and oversee trading in stocks listed on the Big Board, will largely stay away when the floor reopens, Ms. Cunningham said in her op-ed. Such traders have largely been able to do their jobs remotely since NYSE closed its floor in March.
Those expected to return are the floor brokers who work around the perimeter of the floor, buying and selling stocks on behalf of large investors. Such brokers have largely been unable to do their jobs since the floor closed because they depend on tools—including special NYSE-issued hand-held devices—-that are only available inside the building.
Many floor brokers work for small, independent firms with fewer than 20 employees, and they make no income outside of what they earn on the floor, Ms. Cunningham said in the Journal opinion article, adding that they had pushed for a floor reopening.
“I hear from them nearly every day as they ask when they can get back to work, despite their knowledge of the risk,” she said.
Write to Alexander Osipovich at alexander.osipovich@dowjones.com
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