Insight: For Wall Street, a year of hunting bargains while taking refuge

TRADING from kitchen tables. Chasing takeovers alone by mobile phone. Tracking down N-95 masks for the local hospital.

Twenty twenty was a singular year on Wall Street, an industry where flurries of buying and selling usually happen on tight clusters of desks -- not in isolation from homes – and where deals are traditionally sealed with handshakes that now are taboo. For many, the challenges were unexpected and terrifying, but also a chance to prosper.