The US financial markets will take a break on Monday in celebration of President’s Day – which, technically, is not the name of the holiday.
The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will close on February 15. And the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or Sifma, does not recommend trading in dollar-denominated securities, that is, the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, observed closely,
– as well as interest rates for money markets and certificates of deposit – will join the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
the S&P 500 SPX index,
and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
in a static state.
And futures and options trading at CME Group CME,
exchanges will also stop on Monday. In other words, there will be no deals in the future gold trading GCJ21,
or CL.1 crude oil,
However, traders will be able to trade commodities on the Globex platform, with a break starting at 1 pm Eastern time.
So, here’s the skinny on President’s Day. Congress declared Washington’s birthday a public holiday in 1879, according to the Library of Congress. The first president of the republic was born on February 22, 1732.
A number of sources indicate that the holiday was initially celebrated only in the District of Columbia, but became widely recognized as a federal holiday in 1885, marking the first time that an American individual was honored through a bank holiday.
The Uniform Holidays Act of 1968 changed the day of the celebration to the third Monday in February. The Library of Congress website says the day’s designation was never formally changed to President’s Day, but it is often referred to by that name because February 12 is the birthday of the 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln.
The holiday is still often referred to as Washington’s Birthday and is recognized by that name on the ICE owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc.,
New York Stock Exchange.
It is this history of recognition, initially, of a president and, later, of two presidents, or of the presidency in general, that may be to blame for the variations in style that tend to occur in written references to President’s Day – or, alternatively, President’s Day or Presidents’ Day.
Presidents Day is the preferred style for journalistic standards-setters like the Associated Press style book (whose Twitter account tends to tweet a reminder annually) and The Wall Street Journal style guide.
Meanwhile, Canadian markets are closed in celebration of Family Day, which coincides with President’s Day in the USA, falling on the third Monday in February. Trading in European markets and movements in benchmarks like Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP,
and the UK’s FTSE 100 UKX,
are scheduled to start as usual on Monday.
However, Asian markets will be mostly closed for the Lunar New Year, turning the page of the Year of the Rat hit by COVID into the Year of the Ox, which officially started on February 12. The Shanghai Composite Index SHCOMP,
the CSI 300 000300,
the Shenzhen Composite Index 399106,
and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI,
will be closed on Monday.
China’s stock markets pause from 11 to 17 February, while Hong Kong markets will be closed from Friday to Monday.
Markets in Asia and the United States have gained altitude in hopes of better economic times as the world tries to recover from the pandemic COVID-19, which was first identified in December 2019 and has since resulted in 108 million cases across the world – 27 million in the U.S., along with 475,000 deaths in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.