The New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) resumed trading this morning at a back-up facility outside Manhattan.
NYBOT trades in vital agricultural commodities such as cocoa, coffee, sugar, frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) and cotton. It was the only exchange whose trading floor was demolished by the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The first day of trading shows the country's and NYBOT's resolve to overcome the World Trade Center disaster, a statement posted on the exchange's website said. Brokers and NYBOT employees abandoned the site after last Tuesday's twin plane assaults.
Trading was staggered at the smaller facility since it only has two trading pits compared to the 13 in the former exchange at 4 World Trade Center, now buried under tonnes of smoking rubble in downtown Manhattan.
Cocoa futures soared quickly when trading in the commodity opened at 7.30 a.m.
The spot December cocoa contract clawed its way to a so-far session high of $960 a tonne and was hovering $33 stronger at the day's low of $950 - mainly on the back of pent-up speculative buying in the market.
Cocoa trading will end at 9.00 a.m (ET). The brokers will then leave the trading pit so that dealings in arabica coffee futures will get under way at 9.30 a.m.
Business in raw sugar, cotton and FCOJ will then proceed in 90-minute segments until 5 p.m.