It seems not even the world’s largest stock market exchange can stand up to the ‘superstorm’.u00a0Stock and options exchanges and their regulators closed US markets yesterday, in the first marketwide shutdown since September 2001, as Wall Street braced for Hurricane Sandy’s approach.

The agreement, reached late on Sunday night, marked a reversal from an earlier call by the exchanges to remain open for business to electronic trading even as they shuttered their trading floors in advance of the storm.