Flood-Fire-Flood on Water Street, NYC, 2009
About 40 trillion worth of stock and bond certificates held in an underground Manhattan vault owned by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation were damaged by flooding in Hurricane Sandy in November 2012. The New York-based company DTCC processes transactions in U.S. equities and government, municipal and corporate bonds. The 40-year-old vault was submerged when the Atlantic Ocean’s largest tropical storm on record slammed New York City.
The DTCC processes the underwriting of stock and bond offerings for all transactions on the New York Stock Exchange and electronically registers securities and ensures that dividend payments are accurate. It also manages transactions and payments in equities and fixed income and guarantees that trades clear. Purchases and sales are mainly handled through electronic book entry, with the securities registered in the name of DTCC unit Cede & Co. The DTCC is owned by its member banks, brokers, mutual funds and other financial institutions.
The “Unfortunate and Unpredictable” destruction of $40 Trillion in Stocks and Bonds must have come as a shock seeing that a fifth grader wouldn’t house the largest depository of “paper” stocks and bonds in a vault below sea level and then, forget to close the door. That’s right, the vault was waterproof, but someone forgot to close the door on the way out after they heard the largest hurricane to ever hit Manhattan was on the way. But that is only topped by the fact that after the flood drained, a fire somehow burnt the contents of the vault. And then, another flood somehow filled the vault again leaving a mess that DTCC says may never be cleared up.
Coincidence?
Then we are told by DTCC that the remains of the $40 trillion paper trail has been moved to a secret location; furthermore, no pictures of the “damp and burnt” records were ever shared with the public. This is made even odder when we read from DTCC own newsletter its intentions concerning “paper” copies of anything traded on the New York Stock exchange. As a matter of fact, just prior to the 2012 flood, DTCC called for a “dematerialization” of paper copies of any transaction on the NY Stock Exchange, or any other exchange.