But at this point it has decided to shut trading all together. That happened after it had conversations with other u. S. Stock markets and with u. S. Regulators, including the sec. And this is the first weather related shut down since hurricane fwlor i cant back in 1985. The cme group is running its urk of usual futures session from 6 00 p. M. To 9 15 a. M. Eastern. You will be able to see the stock Index Futures throughout the morning. They are under pressure right now. Cme will be shutting down trading after that time. So depending on the impact of the storm, its possible the same scenario will be repeated this morning. Three companies have canceled earnings reports. Pfizer, nrg and entergy. The government still planning to release personal income and spending data at 8 30. The question is did they decide to shut down the electronic portion because the s sec and others said we dont know whether the system unto itself will work, or they did taest it back in march. And they were undetermine pressure in banks and companies saying we dont want to send people to work. Its one thing to say we wont go it to the floor, but if you keep the can exchange oem, peop still have to interact with it. So the real question there. Lower manhattan is probably not a place you want to hang out. Goldman sachs which is right down there put out a memo saying you tonig dont have to come to work, but trading is open, so please come if you can. Which goes to the issue they are right in the heart of whats called zone a which theyre telling other people to evacuate. So i think this is part of whats going on. Sbl we. Weve talked about the greedy wall street types. Used to get a nickel to trade and now a basis point or something. Unless they go back to fractions. But thats why they did it now. They dont make anything per share. If there were fractions, they would still be open. Lets get down to new york city which is bracing for that storm surge and flooding. Thousands have already been evacuated. Mass transit is shut down. Scott cohn is in zone a in battery park. You wouldnt know to look at things now that there a big storm coming in, but weve already seen the water here in new york harbor starting to rise even though the tide is relatively low. And certainly by later on today where i am is going to be under water and ill be somewhere else. But i think what you were talking about in terms of the decision that the exchanges decided to make was the issue of people later today not only getting into their offices, but also getting out of them as things get worse. And the question now is whether they will reopen tomorrow and the current plan is that they will not. So that would be the first two day weather related closure since 1988. New york city is very, very quiet even for 6 00 in the morning. They shut down the Transit System last night. People have been heeding that. And a lot of evacuations again in the low lying areas, this socalled zone a where we are. But the worry is that the storm surge if it is as forecast, which will be worse than hurricane irene last year, could create some Serious Problems in terms of getting in to the subway system, in terms of getting into the con ed steam lines and potentially the electrical system. And so even if the wind doesnt blow out power, there could be pry empty differen preemptive Power Outages. So thats one of the many reasons that they decided to hunger down with all the Financial Markets. Stay home, theres money to be made later and well just deal with it. For now just a little bit of a breeze blowing here. That is clearly supposed to chan change. Where do you go later . You have to find a pole, right . You know that thats every guy out in a strong breeze, youve seen youve got to find a pole around there, right . Ill look for it. Theres light poles and stuff, but i think i need to get a little further away from the water. Yeah, that would be a good idea, too. Well have to get him a bungee cord. Okay. Lets get a little bit more on the forecast on the storm in maria larosa. As you mentioned, the storm has strengthened since the last advisory. Up to 85 miles an hour mfrp winds. The pressure has also dropped, but still moving to the north at 14 miles an hour. Still hasnt made the left turn. But you can see the rack takes it land falling likely someplace in new jersey to delaware late tonight to early tomorrow morning and then continues slowly into the interior northeast and new england for several days. So youre still looking at that wind field, whether its still a tropical system or subtropical low pressure impacting a huge area. Right now Hurricane Force winds extend out 175 miles from the center. Back to you. Paul walsh is with us and weve heard a lot of things thrown around about this storm, how weve never seen anything like this. Why is this so different . People look at it and think its only level one hurricane. Whats the big deal . I think the biggest deal is just how big it is. This confluence of events with the storm from the south and the cold air from the west, and weve generated this massive storm thats covering a huge area for a long period of time which will have huge impacts as relates to Power Outages which of course will have all the impacts on the consumers in those areas and it will trickle down into the economy almost without a doubt. I guess if you have a storm sitting right over you, what is it supposed to sit here for 36 hours or something . What does that mean in terms of rainfall . Probably five to ten inches of rain. Lots and lots of wind across the trees which still have leaves on them. They come down, power is out and then we have gridlock and everything is shut down for maybe more than several days. You remember last year the snow that we had. Snowtober. The leaves were on the trees. Ive never seen more branchs down. I would think snow on leaves would cause more Power Outages than wind. Is that are there going to be just as many incidents . Because the guys that had to repair stuff last year, they were repairing stuff for two weeks solid. And the tree guys, you still couldnt get an appointment. And every branch fell and wind, a lot of the leaves are falling, im telling you, theyre falling. So a strong wind will bring most of them down anyway, wont it . The difference here, its on broad, it will be affecting all of pennsylvania, new york. Gsome of the estimates are that this will be a power outage like weve not seen before in terms of the shear number of people. They were saying some of the big power lines, too, even the large transmission lines would be affected potentially by some of the winds. I can remember for no reason like even if the final game of the final four when youve got like a georgetown versus a villanova, everybody picks gr g georgetown. P if we underestimate it, we get whacked. If were totally overprepared, and youve had people with all these doesnt sometimes is it possible it goes the other way . Who way th no way this is not going to be as serious. Because the media does tend to jump on things like this. Its really a probability issue. Youre saying theres a 90 chance that we could see in massive infrastructure ahead versus a 10 chance that it wont. What do you make your bet on. There still could be less impacts, but you have to plan for plan for the worst and hope for the best. I know two does not make a trend, but should we worry that every fall were going to start walk manage to Something Like this . Why would we . Ive read a couple of pieces where people have suggested Huffington Post and New York Times probably, right some. That this may be the beginning of a trend and what that means to this region. I think the issue is if it is a trend, we wont really know it for ten years or 15 years because the time scales are so long. So its impossible to point at one do you know how much money geico has made since the katrina year, how much buffett has made . A fortune. What was that, 2005 . Yeah. But i do wonder if you did have trading this morning, what somebody look travelers or berkshire would be trading at. But weaved had less hurricanes since 2005 than you would think. Refinery, do you know anything about the plants around here . I dont know the specific plans, but i know thats certainly a risk. About 7 of the nations refining is done here in new jersey and dwell wear. And theyre right in the path. Absolutely right in the path. So i would expect to see those guys shut in if they havent already. Which will impact obviously gas prices. There was speculation how you could see Oil Prices Drop because no one will be taking supply. Thats true. Absolutely. Paul, thank you very much. Youll be inhouse with us. Im weathering the storm here. Andrew, im not kidding, last week, a sociologist writing for the Huffington Post said if this doesnt get us to completely try to get off all fossil fuels as quickly as we possibly can, this Upcoming Event now, this is affecting how many people are in the world is this probably lifehow many people are being affected by this . Its right here its about onesixth of the country. But you take the world, north america had a warm summer, but you look at the rest of the world and it was varying every single place. And thats what scares me about people that really do try to make a call as if i wasnt trying to i know, but im talking about the social yol guests that write articles about science. Lets check on the markets. Futures are trading, but down about 61 points. Half a percentage point for the dow industrials. Could i make the point since well be looking for things to talk about today, i could make the point that statistics from labor day to the election 90 of the time if the markets up, the incumbent wins. The number of 13,090. So 17 points above where we close the day before labor day. Ohio getting much closer apparently. Anyway, lets look at the oil board. If you look at the s p and how its come down recently, a lot of the risk assets have come down at the same time the s p has. Went up on qe and once revenue started coming in it light or denniss also pointed out we could see big margin calls. Take a quick look at currencies. Or the ten year. Probably down around 1. 7 or so on the ten year. Guess well go to kelly in london. Youre back over there. You made it. Thats good. I was on a flight out saturday night. I i know they started shutting town things on sunday, so i barely squeaked out of there. Did have to help grandpa clear the Deck Furniture before i left. But wanted to give you a sense of whats happening here back in london. A storm on both sides of the atlantic because even the outperformer in the euro stoxx 600, its ubs up 4. 5 because its rumored to be cutting 10,000 jobs. You can see, though, that most of the other stocks are in the red this morning. Down 0. 6 . And this basically has to do with the flaring up of concerns around greece and spain. Talks being held on wednesday about getting aid, but not necessarily an agreement as to getting the Public Holdings of that greek debt to be written down. Lets take a quick look at the major indexes. Seeing losses of about half a to more than that. C 40 down 1 . Guests this morning saying be careful about trading in the u. S. Because it will be so illiquid. We had asian markets more of a mixed bag. The bond wall as mentioned, were seeing this sort of rotation into quality. So bunds doing better. U. S. Treasury doing better. Spain and italy selling off a little. Quick look at currencies. The eurodollar is weaker because of these periphery concerns coming back to the fore. The dollaryen a little weaker. The aussie dollar has flipped up and trying to hold this 1. 0350 level or thereabouts. The yen by the way speaking of japan, we just have a little bit of focus ahead of the boj meeting tomorrow. The boj meeting will be a key one help how much more can they do to try it support the country and depress the value of the yen. And honda slashed its profit target by the year and cited its dispute with china as a key reason. Toyota and nissan report next week. So not a lot of great news to report from over here. Certainly well keep an eye on to 150e what the impact of sandy is, but again, a lot of people deciding theyll clear of this one for a couple days. And i have to wonder will they get the jobs report out on friday as expected. Good question. Also a little bit of news out from your neck of the woods. Pearsons penguin being mentioned with random house. Going to affect book lovers everywhere. Exactly. My book was a penguin book. Penguin will own 47 of the company. Some antitrust questions by the way. They control acts ov little ove respect abopercent of the marke and rue further murdoch will potentially try to jump in. Did you see titanic, did you see how a lot of people that didnt have rafts, they held on to each other and were like, okay, were safe now because they were holding on to each other. This is not good it for the Book Publishing business. They sank much slower they had someone to go down where. Well talk more about the merger and other issues related to the titanic of a ter tfter t break. Coming up, well find out how long travellers may be stranded. And will Hurricane Sandy rock the vote. John harwood will check in from washington. Welcome back. A quiet times square before the storm. Well have a Weather Channel update in just a few minutes. Well see whether they know anything that we dont know here at a business channel. I dont know why they would. Time for squawk sports as the east coast is preparing for Hurricane Sandy, i dont know what happened to the giants. Giants were in detroit sweeping the tigers. Winning four straight games to capture the title. Once you beat the reds and come back from two down, then the rest was easy for the giants. In case you missed sunday night football or saturday football, are they is kent state a full accredited now youre going to thrust an ohio school on top of it . They dont have video of that. I think what you should say to me is how did colorado do against oregon. I wouldnt go that low. Y picked against your alma mater. I know. Notre dame by the way, it you watch the first couple i watched in and out. I thought oklahoma was going to beat them badly with the way but they kept saying it was before the coverage, they let them have those passes. That was like the momentum if that hasnt happened, the whole outcome could have been different. I felt bad up they tied it. It felt good. And you know what else felt good . That guy, they almost scored at the end, and then he didnt get in and he was trash talking. And then they threw to him again and he pushed the guy away and then they never did get the touchdown. How does that feel . Never mind. Were pinning it all on notre dame. Lets go to the other story of the morning, Hurricane Sandy pounding the east koercoast, wi you about the storm rock the vote . Lets get to john harwood. Smuf co you have some cool graphics there. How is this impacting the ground game for the election . The two scores ahead with two minutes left. How is that looking, too . Update us on that. Now hes one score ahead and theres less time on the clock. Still a touchdown ahead. Interesting. You didnt hear me. I said eithers score. What does that mean . Do you think a field goal is a score . A safety is a score. Safety, extra point. And how much time is left and who has the ball . I think hes down a field goal, probably down two, field goal could win it for him. With how much time . About a minute. A minute to go. Where do you see that reflected . Other than entrade, what have you got . I dont care about entrade. Swing states. I guess you have obama up in ohio still. Yeah, i think obama does have a slight lead in ohio. Even though the cincinnati inquirer poll just had it tied. I understand that. Its not rasmussen. Which polls do we believe now . I understand that. Do you want me to should we keep going on this or shy deal with andrews question about the ground game . No, we better talk sandy i think. Okay. Sandy effect on the vote is entirely speculative. There are a lot of people yakking about it, but mostly making stuff up. Ill go to a couple things. First of all, obama is believed to have a somewhat more extensive ground game, he has more people on the ground. So in theory, he has more to disrupt. The president s schedule has him doing more events that will have to be canceled than romney. On the other hand, because romney is down a field goal and needs something to happen, the idea that sandy could flereeze things in place for a few days is not necessarily good for him because he had momentum after the first debate. The momentum seems to have died out. Its left him in a very competitive position. He could win the election. But he may need a little bit of push by the end. And then the other thing that people talk about is the idea that president obama can showrd shal leadership and hes helping people, using fema and other tools of the administration. Im kind of skeptical of that because i think people understand that thats a president s job. I dont see the president getting much mileage out of that. But who knows. This is a random question. If the election were held tomorrow, would they ever cancel or delay the actual election itself due to weather,s that that ever happened . Not to my knowledge. I think it would be very, very difficult to do. But, you know, Stranger Things have happened. Im not aware that thats ever happened. I mean, it certainly happened in particular jurisdictions. You remember in 9 11, they moved the Mayoral Election in new york city. So certainly theres press department for in the catastrophic circumstance moving the date, but ive never seen that in a president ial election and id be very surprised if that happens. John harwood, stay safe today. Appreciate your perspective on all of this. Well still be dealing with this football metaphor when the game ends. When we come back, well talk more about the decision to close nyse and nasdaq both bracing for the impact. Bob pisani will tell us about the plan for today. You do see futures trading today. 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