Nearly all major markets are closed on New Year’s Day
Wall Street is set to bid adieu Monday to 2018, a bruising year for most assets that, for some investors, can’t end soon enough. But market participants may be able to take heart in the fact that of a brief respite on New Year’s Day, when nearly all markets will be closed.
On Monday, both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq observed regular trading hours, closing at 4 p.m. Eastern time. Regular trade will resume on Wednesday, Jan. 2.
Most global financial markets will be closed on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019, for New Year’s Day.
Stocks in the U.S. have performed poorly of late, with December setting up to be one of the worst stock-market months in at least a decade and the worst December since 1931.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.15% has declined 9.7% thus far in December, while the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.85% is down 9.9% during the period, and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.77% is off 10.2% through Friday’s close. Those declines would represent the worst monthly drops since October 2008, according to FactSet data.
For the year, the Dow is in line for a 6.7% loss, with the S&P 500 down 7% and the Nasdaq Composite on pace for a 4.6% fall.
Trading on Monday, however, was looking up after investors saw reasons to buy in recent tweets from President Donald Trump about putative trade-negotiation progress between himself and Chinese leader Xi Jinping via weekend phone conversations.