We should remember, however, that there have been serious disruptions to service in daily life before, from storms, temporary power outages, disruptions of telephone service, etc. In general, these prove to be annoying and inconvenient, but nothing more. We also need to maintain reasonable and responsible patterns of behavior.
It is possible that market participants may reduce clearing and settlement activity on December 31 and January 3. Several participants, however, have indicated plans to reduce activity over a substantially longer period, up to a month.