Ringing in the New Year on Wall Street

Dario Cantatore / Getty Images After a stormy 2009, everyone on the Street was praying for a better 2010. Beau Willimon took in the scene.

The past 26 months have been a roller coaster for Wall Street. The New York Stock Exchange lost more than half of its value after reaching an historic high in October 2007 (14164) and bottoming-out in March 2009 (6547). By the end of last year, the market had rallied back, regaining more than half of the value it had lost, closing at 10428. In the meantime, it weathered bank collapses, government bailouts, and a global recession. Will 2010 be the year the market continues its climb out of the abyss, or the year that all hell breaks loose, déjà-vu-style? Yesterday was the first day of trading in the new year. I spent it on Wall Street taking the pulse.

“It looks good right now,” one broker said, “but if Bernanke ratchets up interest rates too much, I think the market could go down again.”

I emerged out of the subway into a blustery, bone-chilling Manhattan morning. Most of the shop fronts were still shuttered, but streams of early commuters was already making their way down the sidewalks, leaning into the wind. As I made my way downtown, I passed by ground zero, where hard-hatted men were already busy at work in the labyrinthine foundations of the new World Trade Center. Turning onto Wall Street from Broadway, I funneled through the security ramparts and walked down the long, sloping three blocks that comprise the Street, arriving at the Wall Street Ferry Pier. The sun was just beginning to peek over the skyscrapers in Brooklyn across the East River. Despite the wind and cold, it was a beautiful, clear morning. I pulled out my iPhone to check the latest financial news with my quickly numbing fingers. Asian markets closed with mixed but decent results. European markets were gaining. U.S. stock futures were up. Everything was pointing to a strong opening for the NYSE. I turned back and headed up the street to buy a much-needed cup of coffee at Starbucks. The line was already pouring out the door.

Due to a heap of last-minute red tape, the NYSE Media Relations folks denied my request to witness the opening bell from within the Exchange. So I headed to my good friend Sam’s nearby apartment to watch the opening like every other schmuck and schmuckette in the world—on TV. Sam was in the kitchen standing over a sizzling skillet of bacon, spatula in hand. I asked Sam what he thought would happen to the market in 2010. “I think it’s going to keep rebounding this year,” he said. “Maybe not to the heights of 2007, but I think we’ve seen the bottom and we won’t slip back.” Sam’s qualifications as a financial analyst? He’s a playwright.

I plopped down on the couch in the living room and clicked on CNBC’s live coverage of the Exchange. The show was named Squawk on the Street, which makes me think more of puppets than stocks. Duck puppets to be exact. The sassy Erin Burnett and the gruff Mark Haines were anchoring the countdown. I rarely watch CNBC, but as I listened to Erin and Mark’s not-so-witty-but-trying-to-be banter and faux-cozy repartee, it struck me that they were like the Regis and Kelly of finance. I prayed for the ringing of the bell, mostly so it would drown out their voices.

Sam was still busy with his skillet in the kitchen as the clock counted down the final 10 seconds. I yelled over and asked if he wanted to join me to see the bell ring. He declined. “Bacon is way better than CNBC,” he yelled back. I might be inclined to agree with him.

At precisely half past 9, Eastern Standard Time, the bell clanged away. The 2010 trading year had officially begun. The Dow immediately opened two points higher than its close on December 31, then soared more than 70 points in its first few minutes. All the indicators had been right—a strong opening for the market. But would the gains in the first moments of trading continue throughout the day, or eventually sink for a loss? There were still six and half more hours of trading to go.

Undaunted by missing the opening bell, I was determined to get inside the Exchange. My friend Joe—a hedge-fund trader—arranged for a broker to get me on the trading floor itself. I’ll call the broker “Mike,” because company policy prevents me from using his actual name or that of his firm.

Mike met me outside and ushered me past a gauntlet of security posts until we arrived through a set of heavy double doors into a trading room known as “The Garage,” part of a large annex opened next to the original trading hall in 1922. I gawked at the sea of broker posts, specialist booths, and flat-screen monitors surrounding me.

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Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.

Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

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Ringing in the New Year on Wall Street

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