13
CHAPTER
WHEN WORLD EVENTS IMPACT
FINANCIAL MARKETS
I can predict the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of
crowds.
ISAACNEWTONAs the sun rose over New York City on a beautiful Tuesday morning,
September 11, 2001, traders expected a dull day on Wall Street. There
was no economic data coming out of Washington, nor any earnings re-
leases scheduled. The previous Friday the markets had fallen on a horri-
ble employment report, but on Monday the markets had bounced back
slightly.
The U.S. equity markets had not yet opened, but contracts on the
S&P 500 Index futures had been trading all night as usual on the elec-
tronic Globex exchange. The futures markets were up, indicating that
Wall Street was expecting a firm opening. But then a report came at 8:48
a.m. on what was to be one of the most fateful days in world history: a
plane crashed into the World Trade Center Towers. The pattern of trad-
ing over the next 27 minutes, before the market closed, is shown in Fig-
ure 13-1.221Copyright © 2008, 2002, 1998, 1994 by Jeremy J. Siegel. Click here for terms of use.