But this week, sitting in a warehouse on Varick Street that Morgan Stanley is using as a backup site, Lyons came up dry.
"I haven't heard any," he said. "It's amazing. And right now, I would not try retelling one if I heard it."
The shock has at least temporarily robbed many traders of some of their daring.
"Generally, people are just hanging out," said one hedge-fund manager. "People who really make money in this business love the game. A lot of that love of the game has been lost."
A veteran government bond trader for a big bank said, "A lot of people have to say the year ended Sept. 11. The people who made money by Sept. 11 are trying to hold on to what they've got."
Those who were in a hole are resisting the urge to trade their way out of it, said this trader, because they think their bosses will spare them unless they make a big mistake now.
Under different circumstances, John Argento might be counting his blessings. Instead, he is counting the empty parking spaces in the huge lot outside Sand Bar USA, a nightclub he runs in Jersey City, New Jersey. Traders and investment bankers, on their way home from Lower Manhattan, used to stream off ferries to tables outside Argento's bar in the Liberty Marina. Now, thousands of displaced Wall Streeters are working on his side of the Hudson River. But none of them are showing up, he said.
"I had a tremendous Friday business going into this disaster," he said. "Now, I've got no Thursday, no Friday. I just don't really sense much of a mood among these people to go out and party after work."
The wife of a senior investment banker said she had recently discovered that two executives at major Wall Street firms were suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress. For a couple of weeks after witnessing the attack up close, these friends had seemed fine, but lately they have not wanted to leave their homes, she said.
"Now that the dust is settling, people are feeling like they are not able to function," she said.
Even attempts at making life a bit more bearable have a whiff of dark humor about them. At Lehman Brothers Holdings' temporary headquarters in Jersey City, Boris, a light-colored Labrador retriever, has a company identification badge with his mug on it.
Retired from the New York Police Department, Boris sniffs all of the bags and packages entering the building for signs of explosives. Boris has quickly become a valued member of the Lehman team. Last Thursday, the building was cleared twice because of bomb scares.
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