Monday, October 12 brings a split trading session across North America, with Canada celebrating Thanksgiving and the US observing Columbus Day, also recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in many places.
The key distinction for traders is that US stock markets are fully open, but the bond market is closed.
The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will operate their regular sessions, from 9:30 am to 4 pm Eastern. There is no early close, so equities traders will have a full day to react to corporate news and weekend developments but news flow is often light on Columbus Day as it’s a Federal holiday.
At the same time, Trump has used weekends — and long weekends — to attack Iran in the past so that’s always a possibility.
US fixed income follows a different calendar. SIFMA recommends a full closure for dollar-denominated bond trading, including Treasuries, corporate bonds and municipal securities. Technically, that is an industry recommendation rather than a mandatory shutdown, but it is the standard holiday convention. The Federal Reserve also observes the holiday.
In Canada, the Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange and Montréal Exchange will all be closed. Regular trading resumes Tuesday, October 13. Canadian bond and money markets also observe the Thanksgiving holiday.
That means Canadian investors can still see price moves in the US listings of interlisted companies while their Toronto shares sit idle. Those moves can feed into Tuesday’s Canadian opening (and can create a small opportunity).
Foreign exchange trading doesn’t take holidays but the combination of Canadian holidays and reduced US participation could leave liquidity thinner than usual.
For futures traders, do not confuse the cash bond holiday with a blanket futures shutdown. CME says it will publish settlement prices for CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX products at their normal times on Monday.
Overall, expect an uneven session but much will depend on what happens over the weekend. As for the economic calendar, it’s completely bare for North America on Monday with Tuesday hardly better as existing home sales are the only notable release. It picks up in a big way on Wednesday with US CPI, a speech from Bowman and comments from the BOC’s Macklem that could carry more weight in light of today’s weak jobs report.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.