Wall Street hunkered down on Monday and Tuesday as Hurricane Sandy blew through the region, leaving unprecedented destruction in her wake. But with minimal damage on the prestigious New York Stock Exchange trading floor and hours of preparation and testing of electronic communications systems, the exchange is going to open normally at 9:30am on Wednesday morning.

Peter Anderson, a senior portfolio manager at the Boston-based Congress Asset Management firm said,

“There will be no Halloween costumes on the New York Stock Exchange when the market opens back up because there will be a great deal of tension just in terms of restarting the markets and making sure … trading goes smoothly.”

The forecasting company IHS Global Insight is predicting damage from Sandy could amount to as much as $50 billion. In contrast last year’s hurricane/tropical storm Irene was the cause of $4.3 billion in insured damage.

IHS is saying that property damage could reach about $20 billion and lost business revenue may amount to $30 billion. Together the losses could reduce US overall economic growth by 0.6 percentage points in the last quarter of 2012. Retailers, airlines and home construction firms will most likely be hit hard.