Wall St. Near Normal After Power Outage

Trading slowly returned to normal today after a power outage in lower Manhattan knocked out electricity to much of the financial district Monday.

All the major exchanges opened, some with delays. But all suffered a drop-off in trading volume as Wall Street firms operated without some of their back-shop and computer operations due to the power outage.

A large area of lower Manhattan still did not have electrical power this morning after the fire that cut power in much of the Wall Street area just after noon Monday.

About 1,100 customers, many of them financial firms near the New York Stock Exchange, were still affected.

Consolidated Edison said the blackout area was around the South Street Seaport, a market and restaurant complex surrounded by a number of Wall Street firms on the East Side of Manhattan’s tip.

“We can’t predict when everyone will be back in service but we expect full restoration to take several days,” the spokeswoman said.

But on the West Side of lower Manhattan, the World Trade Center was back in business, as were a number of big firms surrounding the city’s tallest and most spacious building.

The American Stock Exchange, which had been forced to close early on Monday, opened on schedule.

The Commodity Exchange Inc., which houses precious metals and copper, had expected to open on time but later reversed course and announced delayed openings.

The Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange said openings in coffee and cocoa futures would be delayed, while sugar contracts would open on schedule.

The NASDAQ over-the-counter stock market opened on time but made special provisions for member firms without power so they could initiate trades through NASDAQ computers.