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Cantor Fitzgerald has busy trading day

The family of Daniel Trant, a Cantor Fitzgerald employee killed in the World Trade Center console each other at an anniversary ceremony at the ``Ground Zero'' site in New York on the one year anniversary Wednesday of the attacks that brought down the Towers. Son Daniel Kant Jr is being comforted at left. PHOTO: REUTERS

Cantor Fitzgerald LP, the bond and equity broker that lost 658 employees in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, is having one of its busiest days, with proceeds going to its family-relief fund.

The firm acts as a go-between for Wall Street dealers and banks that want to trade stocks, bonds and money-market assets without disclosing their identities until the deal is set.

It does this almost daily for the world's largest investment banks including Credit Suisse First Boston Inc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JP Morgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley. Proceeds from yesterday's business will go to the firm's charity fund.

"We've had a lot of support from our customers," said John Duffield, Cantor's head of Asia. "They are trying very hard to do as much of their business with us as they can."

The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund receives 25 percent of Cantor's profits for the next five years. It will be distributed to the families of Cantor employees who died Sept. 11.

Family and friends of the 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees who died in the Sept. 11 attacks came together in Central Park Wednesday in a private memorial to remember those lost and to begin thinking about the future.

Under a huge tent, hundreds of people gathered Wednesday to hear speeches from family members, colleagues and survivors as well as a smattering of politicians, clergymen and celebrities.

Howard Lutnick, the bond brokerage firm's CEO, whose brother, Gary Lutnick, died in the attacks, reminded the guests that they would stand together as they continue to move ahead.

"Each of us has had our hearts torn apart,'' Lutnick told the somber, tearful crowd. ``But we can take those pieces and put them back together. ... And together we will create something new."

The company, which lost nearly two out of every three employees last Sept. 11 -- representing almost a quarter of the total 2,801 dead and missing at the World Trade Center -- has already started the difficult process of rebuilding.

Cantor Fitzgerald and its subsidiaries have temporarily relocated to midtown Manhattan and hired 150 new employees.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton reminded the audience that while the friends and family of Cantor Fitzgerald employees have suffered immensely, they have also set an example of strength over the past year.

"How do you move forward when the grief is this large? How do you endure the sadness?" asked Clinton. "You have helped answer those questions -- not only for each other but for the city and the state. You move through it the way that you have."

The most rousing moment came when Lauren Manning addressed her colleagues. Manning, a Cantor Fitzgerald sales executive, spent three months in a coma and sustained such severe burns that she was given only a 10 percent chance of surviving. Manning said that rather than stand for a moment of silence she would like to clap until her arms ached, hoping that those who perished would hear her.
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