“The Cantor feed just went down!”
Cantor Fitzgerald is a broker renowned for bond trading and, in 2001, it’s 500 page was the standard source for knowing US Treasury bond prices and yields. The speaker was a bond trader and ‘the feed’ referred to that 500 page.
“A small plane hit the World Trade Center” a voice came from the TV, which now showed smoke pouring from the side of the World Trade Center North Tower. Cantor Fitzgerald’s New York office and bond desk were in the top floor of that tower and the link that carried the updates for the 500 page was severed when the plane hit the building.
The TV newsman was soon corrected that it was no small plane that hit the tower, and later, the nation would know that we were under attack.
All 658 of the men and women in the Cantor Fitzgerald office perished. Not only was the communications link that carried its 500 page severed, but so were the stairwells, leaving them tragically aware of their eventual fate.
That is how the day began 19 years ago.