Mayor Adams to Ring Opening Bell at NYSE on Monday

By Yehudit Garmaise

The clang of the brass bell of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), a daily ritual on Wall Street, signals the start of the excitement and frenzy of the day’s trading at the world’s largest stock exchange, and Mayor Eric Adams has been given the honor to ring the bell Monday at 9:30am.

The ceremonial ringing the NYSE bell, which many whom have been given the honor have described as “thrilling,” is usually given to the chairman or the president of a company that is going public, explained a finance professor, however, when a political leader rings the bell, the NYSE is usually sending a message that the city is “back in business” after a crisis.

For instance, on Oct. 31, 2012, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg rang the NYSE’s opening bell after Hurricane Sandy closed down the stock exchange for two days.

Mayor Adams was likely given the honor because of his repeated urgings of the city’s businesses to stop allowing employees to work at home “in their pajamas.”

“That is not who we are as a city,” the mayor said at an economic development event at the Brooklyn Navy Yard last week. "In order for our financial ecosystem to function, we have to have human interaction. It can't be done from home.”

In addition to the dynamism and energy that comes from in-person work, the mayor said that the local businesses, such as restaurant and shops, around big office buildings continue to suffer, as remote work in NYC persists.

While the Russian stock market plunged last week after President Joe Biden and the 30 members of the National Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the military alliance, issued economic sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine, the stocks at the NYSE temporarily dropped in value on Thursday, but, on Friday, the values of American stocks have been on the rise.

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