September 11 Commission Report - Gnostic Liberation Front

Center were bonds and government securities. The US stock market did not open that
day, and even if it had, would not have been open at the time of the attack.
“The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market never opened for trading the day of the
attacks. The facilities of the New York Board of Trade in Four World Trade Center were destroyed.
Regional stock exchanges, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange all
closed as well. European markets remained officially open but “most traders found it difficult to do
much business.” (Schroeder 2001) Equity markets reopened on Monday morning, September 17.”
[Payment System Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M.
Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, 23219, USA, Federal Reserve Bank
of Richmond Working Paper 03-16, December 23, 2003]
“Trading in U.S. government securities starts at 8 a.m. in New York, and repo trading starts as early as
7 a.m. 3 “(T)he bulk of government securities cash and repo trading takes place before 9:00 a.m., … so
September 11 was close to a full trading day.” (Green 2003, p. 3) According to Jeff Ingber, the general
counsel for the Government Securities Clearing Corporation, on the morning of September 11, some
$500 billion in repo transactions and about $80 billion in government securities trades had already
been executed when the planes hit. (Shephard 2002) Reconciling these trades would occupy backoffice
personnel for weeks.” [Payment System Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following
September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia,
23219, USA, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Working Paper 03-16, December 23, 2003]
There were only three companies in the WTC that serviced government securities and
“repos” (A repurchase agreement -“repo” or “RP”- is a sale of securities coupled with an
agreement to repurchase the securities at a higher price on a later date):
• Cantor Fitzgerald, (which lost 661 of its employees when the high-jacked airline hit
the tower immediately below its offices in the North Tower.)
• Garbon Inter-capital (now ICAP PLC, on the 25 th and 26 th floor of the North Tower,
sitting right over the destroyed FBI offices), and
• Euro Brokers (a much smaller broker, which lost 60 employees when the high-jacked
airline hit the tower immediately below its offices in the South Tower).
Had the towers not collapsed, it is fair to surmise that the three government bond
operations would have been effectively compromised.
Of the three bond traders, Cantor Fitzgerald was by far the largest, being the largest
government securities trader in the world and moving up to a half of the U.S. securities.
“the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which also keeps tabs on primary-dealer trading activity (but
on a delayed basis), says primary dealer trades with interdealer brokers averaged $101 billion a day
last year, while primary dealer trades with others averaged $86 billion a day. Cantor doesn't disclose
volume numbers, but it claims to do more than 50% of all interdealer trades in the Treasury market and
more than 90% of all interdealer trades of the 30-year Treasury bond.”
[http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/basics/tscglossary/govpx.html]
Co-incidentally, in August of 2001, the Deutschebank – the bank of origin for numerous
illegal stock trades or “put options” made in the days preceding the attack- had just
signed an agreement with Cantor Fitzgerald to install Cantor Fitzgerald’s eSpeed trading
system.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 180