The Securities and Exchange Commission closed U.S. financial markets Tuesday after two towers of the World Trade Center were attacked by hijacked commercial airplanes.

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets said in a statement that it was confident stock trading will resume “as soon as it is both appropriate and practical.”

Analysts suggested that the repercussions of the terrorist attacks remain unclear but may lead the economy into a recession. However, the Federal Reserve said it is ready to assist the economy by supplying extra money to the banking system to avoid a recession. Interest rates also are expected to go down. Private analysts, on the other hand, say that it may not be enough to move past the effects of the attacks.

Professor Richard Dowen, chair of the NIU Department of Finance, predicts “a very sharp negative reaction” when the stock market reopens.

“I would anticipate that the Dow Jones International will be down severely — hundreds of points,” Dowen said. “Insurance companies’ stocks will be badly hurt because of the payouts they have to do.”

Dowen expected the price of gold and oil to go up sharply, along with gas prices. He also said that a lot of people will suffer severe short term losses in their retirement accounts. Dowen believes interest rates may rise, but that U.S. financial institutions basically are sound and won’t be affected by what happened Tuesday.

Matt Myre, a representative at the investment firm Edward Jones, 2600 DeKalb Ave., said that the markets closing in a time of crisis is not unprecedented, pointing to the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Dowen agreed, pointing to the greatest parallel of the effect on the market as being Pearl Harbor.

“I would expect to see the market react in somewhat the same way,” Dowen said. “This is certainly a sad event. It’s not necessarily a unique event”

Myre believes that in terms of market effects, the true impact on the economy will be seen after people have a chance to avoid assessing it from an emotional standpoint. He said the impact will not be significant.

“We were in a borderline recession yesterday, and we’ll be in a borderline recession tomorrow,” he said

Edward Jones was unable to buy or sell investments Tuesday but said the firm is “coping fine.”

“We have total faith in the American economy and the American people to survive this crisis,” Myre said.

Dowen said that a full recovery is in sight within the next year to two years.

“I would also expect that the market will be sharply up when retaliation is carried out,” Dowen said. “It will be the opposite of the emotional reaction we’re having now.”

In terms of personal checking and savings accounts, people will not have cause to worry, Dowen said.

Carmita Harris, a junior accounting major and supervisor at TCF bank in the Holmes Student Center, said that the TCF headquarters in Minneapolis, Minn., closed early Tuesday. TCF, including the one at the student center, had to lower its once unlimited cashback availability for customers to a $5,000 limit. The tellers’ drawer limits also had to be decreased to reduce losses if a robbery was to occur.

Sophomore finance major Joe Yuen is not concerned about the safety of his account at TCF.

“It seems pretty safe to me,” Yuen said.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who was attending a banking conference in Basel, Switzerland, was returning to the United States when the attacks occurred. Greenspan’s flight reportedly returned to Switzerland. Spokesman David Skidmore said Greenspan was kept fully informed through a monitoring team at the Fed headquarters.

Officials of the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Stock Market and American Stock Exchange announced that they will remain closed Wednesday. The New York Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board Options Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade also suspended trading Tuesday. At press time, Chicago Board Options Exchange announced there will be no trading today.

The Associated Press contributed to this report