Is the US stock market closed on Friday for New Year’s Eve? No. It is not even closed on Monday. Here’s why!
Blame it on a vague rule. For the first time in a decade, there will be no closure of the US stock market in connection with New Year’s Day, which falls on a Saturday.
US markets will be open Friday 31. December, which is New Year’s Eve, and New York Stock Exchange operators also do not designate January 3, the first Monday in 2022, as a holiday instead of New Year’s Day.
The last time this type of calendar event took place was on New Year’s Eve in 2010.
How rare is this calendar event? Assuming it was used since 1928, it would have happened 13 times since 1928.
The lack of New Year’s Day for stock traders is a result of NYSE rule 7.2, which stipulates that the stock exchange will be closed either Friday or the following Monday if the public holiday falls on a weekend, unless «unusual business conditions exist, such as. the end of a monthly or annual accounting period. “
In this case, the last day of December is a trifecta of accounting dates, including monthly, quarterly and year-end dates, and comes as the markets have experienced a year-end rally.
Although US bond markets will also be open on Friday, the securities regulator, The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, recommends a closing at
an hour earlier.
For its part, the US stock market this year has seen its best start to a Santa rally, usually defined as trading during the last five sessions of the year and the first two days of the new year, in a couple of decades.
Investors have mainly dismissed concerns about the economic impact of the omicron variant of COVID. Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
was on track for gains of around 5% or better in December and has risen by at least 1.5% this week, while the Nasdaq Composite COMP,
looked at a gain of around 2% per month and 1% per week, starting Thursday afternoon.
Sign up for our MarketWatch newsletter here.