The approach of the holiday season each year usually heralds two recurring stock-market holidays -- Christmas Day and New Year's Day.
Investors may be surprised to learn, however, that the holiday schedule will be slightly different in 2021, thanks to the New York Stock Exchange Rule 7.2.
The rule dictates that when a holiday falls on a Sunday, the market will close on the following Monday. When a holiday falls on a Saturday, the market will close on the preceding Friday - unless “unusual business conditions exist, such as the ending of a monthly or yearly accounting period.”
This year, the Christmas holiday will be observed as usual on Friday, Dec. 24. Meaning the last day of trading that week is Dec. 23.
New Year's Day, however, falls on a Saturday - meaning that moving the holiday to Friday would put it in a different year.
Since, the NYSE already observed a New Year's Day in 2021 (back in January if you remember), so according to rule 7.2 there will be no stock market holiday for New Year's Day this time around.
While the lack of time off may make some traders unhappy, this has happened before, most recently in 2011 when the holiday also fell on a Saturday.
