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Cunningham (right) watches on as New York Gov Andrew Cuomo rings the market's opening bell earlier on Tuesday Image caption: Cunningham (right) watches on as New York Gov Andrew Cuomo rings the market's opening bell earlier on Tuesday

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) President Stacey Cunningham has told BBC News that there was "no pressure" from the Trump administration to reopen the trading floor today after a two-month closure.

Cunningham said the decision to reopen was made to help the smaller independent traders who operate there and "who've not been able to earn an income for their families".

She told the BBC that only 25% of the trading floor has been allowed back, and that NYSE is working with health officials "so that we can start a slow and cautious reopening with new precautionary measures in place so that we can limit the likelihood of an outbreak on the trading floor".

Cunningham also appeared to give tacit backing to a bill passed by the US Senate last week that could block some Chinese companies from selling shares on American stock exchanges.

Asked if it would be a blow to the NYSE, she said "One of the things that makes the US capital markets so strong is the way they balance investor protections with investor choice. We do it better than anyone else in the world.

"Any legislation that we consider should balance those two things as well, certainly transparency is critical so we have a culture over here, very strongly of investors have transparent information. Any measures to enforce that are highly supported by us."