9/11 Memory: Traders

September 11, 2022

9/11 Memory: In 1997, I covered commodities trading, specifically the futures and options trading of "Softs" (coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton, orange juice, and occasionally whole milk) for a wire service broadcast to 93 countries. I covered those five main markets in real time, writing 13 to 16 stories every day, plus one weekly feature story. I also covered weekly money supply meetings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Anyway, around 8 a.m., before trading began, I would often walk across the street from our bureau to interview the traders on the trading floor in one of the World Trade Center towers about what was expected that trading day rather than just give them the usual call on the telephone.

About a year later, I moved to Florida from New Jersey, losing touch with the traders.

On that fateful day in 2001, my thoughts immediately went to those wonderful guys. Since then, every year on 9/11, I have been able to find slight comfort by telling myself that because they worked on the second floor of one of the towers, they probably got out safely ... or maybe those guys weren't working there anymore at that time.

While my memories of them are now rather foggy, I still often wonder what became of them.