Stock Market Holidays in 2021

Is the stock market open today? Well, you can answer that question at any point throughout 2021 with the following handy guide.

Here, we provide a schedule of stock market holidays and bond market holidays for 2021. Please note that regular trading hours for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq Stock Market are 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern on weekdays. The stock markets close at 1 p.m. on early-closure days; bond markets close early at 2 p.m.

Note that the list of stock market holidays might be growing soon. Congress recently voted to make Juneteenth – the June 19 holiday commemorating the end of slavery – the 12th federal holiday. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill, and when he does, it would become the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day., which was signed into law in 1983. (The stock and bond markets alike close for MLK Day.)

2021 Market Holidays

* This is the recommended bond market holiday schedule from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). This schedule is subject to change.

Stock Market Holiday Schedule

The NYSE and Nasdaq stock markets typically observe nine holidays each year:

• New Year's Day
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• Presidents' Day
• Good Friday
• Memorial Day
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Christmas Day

In certain circumstances, the stock market will close early in the days preceding or following market holidays. The NYSE and Nasdaq will close at 1 p.m. the day after Thanksgiving; on Christmas Eve, if it falls on a weekday; and on July 3, if both it and July 4 fall on a weekday.

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Bond Market Holiday Schedule

The bond markets observe the same nine holidays, as well as two additional holidays:

• Columbus Day
• Veterans Day

The bond markets also observe several early closings at 2 p.m. each year:

• The Friday preceding Memorial Day
• The Friday before Independence Day
• Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving)
• Christmas Eve
• New Year's Eve

A couple small differences from 2020: The bond market does not close early on Maundy Thursday in 2021, and it will close at noon on Good Friday instead of closing for the full day.

When it comes to the stock and bond markets alike, if a holiday falls on a weekend, market closures are dictated by two rules:

• If the holiday falls on a Saturday, the market will close on the preceding Friday.
• If the holiday falls on a Sunday, the market will close on the subsequent Monday.

Stock and Bond Market Hours

The "core trading" stock market hours for the NYSE and Nasdaq are 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. However, both exchanges offer premarket trading hours between 4 and 9:30 a.m., as well as late trading hours between 4 and 8 p.m.

Bond markets typically trade between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Why does the stock market offer such limited hours when there are people who would want to buy and sell 24/7?

One of the main reasons is "liquidity," which is how much buying and selling is going on at a given time. The more liquidity in a particular security, the likelier you are to get a fair price on it; the less liquidity, the more likely you might have to settle for a less-than-ideal price to finish off a transaction.

"For the market to function effectively, you need buyers and sellers," says Charles Sizemore, principal of Sizemore Capital Management. "This is why the stock market has set hours that happen to correspond to the East Coast workday. You want the maximum number of traders buying and selling at the same time.

"If you were at an estate auction selling your grandmother's antiques, you'd want a lot of bidders there. It's the same rationale in the stock market."

Data provided by the NYSE and SIFMA.