- ALBANY, NY (AP) - On the
first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, a date known as 9-11, the evening
numbers drawn in the New York Lottery were 9-1-1.
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- "The numbers were picked in the standard random
fashion using all the same protocols," said lottery spokeswoman Carolyn
Hapeman. "It's just the way the numbers came up."
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- Lottery officials won't know until Thursday morning how
many people played those numbers or the total payout, she said.
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- For the evening numbers game, the New York Lottery selects
from balls numbered zero to nine circulating in a machine at the lottery
office. Three levers are pressed, and three balls are randomly brought
up into tubes and then displayed.
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- Traders Puzzled
By Eery 911 Closing Of S&P Futures
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- By Kristina Zurla
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9-12-2
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- CHICAGO (AP) - In an ironic
twist, the September Standard & Poor's 500 futures contract closed
Tuesday at 911.00 - a day before the one-year anniversary of the terrorist
attacks.
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- There was some buzz on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
stock index futures trading floor Wednesday about why that happened, but
there were no reports of collusion or price-fixing.
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- "It was bizarre, it was strange, but it wasn't manufactured,"
said Richard Canlione, vice president of institutional financial futures
at Salomon Smith Barney. "It was just the rules of coincidence ...
That's just where the market was."
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- "It just proves the market God was with us, remembering
the day, too," said one CME trader.
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- The start of trading was delayed Wednesday in honor of
those killed in the attacks.
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- Market players noted prices were already moving higher
throughout Tuesday after two prior up days, so it wasn't as if an abrupt
change in direction took place to achieve the numerical equivalent of Sept.
11.
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- Some thought perhaps suspicious activity could have taken
place, but most brushed it off as a "patriotic rally" and didn't
see the harm in it.
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- "I'm always kinda paranoid, and I find the fact
that we settled there kind of eerie, but I don't think we should dwell
on it or read too much into it," said Tim Haefke, a stock index futures
trader and president of Top-Notch Trading.
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- The futures contract is an obligation to buy or sell
a basket of stocks composing the Standard & Poor's stock index at a
set date for a fixed price.
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- Kristina Zurla is a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires
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- Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved.
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