AFP, New York :
The life of a Wall Street trader was once one of business trips and work dinners, but now it is anything but.
The culprit, as with so many of the economic and financial disruptions the United States has faced over the past months, is the coronavirus pandemic, which has rendered life for the brokers, bankers and businesspeople fueling the world’s largest economy much more lonely.
People working on high-priced transactions like IPOs, bond deals or mergers and acquisitions “used to travel a lot to meet with clients” who would typically only sign agreements in-person, recalls Karl Haeling of LBBW bank.
“Now they would very happily give mandate without seeing you,” said Haeling.
Wall Street sits in the heart of New York City, an early epicenter as the US Covid-19 outbreak turned into the world’s worst, with more than 218,000 deaths and eight millions cases nationwide as of this week.
The pandemic’s intensification in March temporarily cleared the market makers from the New York Stock Exchange’s boisterous floor and forced traders across Wall Street to retreat indoors, relying on their phones, email and instant messaging systems to talk with clients.
“People are doing brainstorming on these various video platforms and they are coming up with product ideas remotely,” said Daniel Alpert, founding managing partner at investment bank Westwood Capital.
But that hasn’t held indices back: the Nasdaq and S&P 500 have both recovered from their massive plunges in March, while the Dow has also regained most of its strength, though millions remain jobless and unemployment is at a high 7.9 percent.
The life of a Wall Street trader was once one of business trips and work dinners, but now it is anything but.
The culprit, as with so many of the economic and financial disruptions the United States has faced over the past months, is the coronavirus pandemic, which has rendered life for the brokers, bankers and businesspeople fueling the world’s largest economy much more lonely.
People working on high-priced transactions like IPOs, bond deals or mergers and acquisitions “used to travel a lot to meet with clients” who would typically only sign agreements in-person, recalls Karl Haeling of LBBW bank.
“Now they would very happily give mandate without seeing you,” said Haeling.
Wall Street sits in the heart of New York City, an early epicenter as the US Covid-19 outbreak turned into the world’s worst, with more than 218,000 deaths and eight millions cases nationwide as of this week.
The pandemic’s intensification in March temporarily cleared the market makers from the New York Stock Exchange’s boisterous floor and forced traders across Wall Street to retreat indoors, relying on their phones, email and instant messaging systems to talk with clients.
“People are doing brainstorming on these various video platforms and they are coming up with product ideas remotely,” said Daniel Alpert, founding managing partner at investment bank Westwood Capital.
But that hasn’t held indices back: the Nasdaq and S&P 500 have both recovered from their massive plunges in March, while the Dow has also regained most of its strength, though millions remain jobless and unemployment is at a high 7.9 percent.
