Idhealt – The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) closes for 10 holidays in 2023, and the Nasdaq Stock Market follows the same schedule. The exchanges’ next holiday closure is on Monday, Jan. 16, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Here is the 2023 holiday schedule for the NYSE and Nasdaq:
New Year’s Day: Monday, Jan. 2 (observed)
Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Monday, Jan. 16
Washington’s Birthday: Monday, Feb. 20
Good Friday: Friday, April 7
Memorial Day: Monday, May 29
Juneteenth National Independence Day: Monday, June 19
Independence Day: Tuesday, July 4
Labor Day: Monday, Sept. 4
Thanksgiving: Thursday, Nov. 23
Christmas: Monday, Dec. 25
The exchanges typically operate from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET on business days. They will close early, at 1 p.m. ET, on three occasions in 2023: the day before Independence Day, the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.
Bond market and bank holidays differ
Bond traders follow a different holiday calendar under guidelines set by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a trade group that represents securities firms, banks and asset management companies. U.S. bond markets close on nine of the 10 days the stock exchanges are silent — all but Good Friday — and on Columbus Day (Monday, Oct. 9).
The bond markets will shut down early (at 2 p.m. ET) six times in 2023: Good Friday (at noon), the Friday before Memorial Day, the day before Independence Day, the day after Thanksgiving, and the last business days before Christmas and New Year’s Eve (Dec. 22 and 29, respectively).
The stock market calendar also differs from the Federal Reserve System holiday schedule followed by most U.S. banks. The Fed observes Columbus Day and Veterans Day (which in 2023 falls on a Saturday), does not take Good Friday off and does not have any formally scheduled early closing days.
Stock exchanges rarely sleep for long
Except in rare circumstances, three-day holiday weekends are the longest time the stock market goes quiet. The exchanges have closed for more than three days running only a handful of times in the past century, most recently during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
The three-day limit is not a formal policy, but rather a rule of thumb that prevents “investor angst” from building up during an extended down period and creating volatility when the market reopens, says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at the investment research firm CFRA.
“There’s an old saying that bull markets take the escalator while bear markets take the elevator,” Stovall says. “Since fear is a greater motivator than greed, I think investors don’t want to be denied access to their money for too long. Otherwise they end up taking money off the table, especially if some unnerving event occurred while the exchange was closed.”
