It’s going to be a short week on Wall Street.
U.S. stock exchanges will be closed for Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, Nov. 24, and will reopen the next day only for an abbreviated session on Black Friday, with trading ending at 1 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 25.
The roughly $53 billion U.S. bond market follows a similar Thanksgiving schedule this year, but closes an hour later on Black Friday at 2 p.m.
It has been a rough year in financial markets with the major equity benchmarks and most bond categories producing negative returns. As a proxy for the bond market, the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF
AGG,
is down roughly 15% on the year so far, according to FactSet. That compares with the S&P 500 index’s
SPX,
17% drop in 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
is off more than 7% in the year to date.
While the U.S. economy already fully reopened last Thanksgiving with the help of COVID vaccines and boosters, this year high inflation means drivers could face record gas prices at the pump when traveling. The national average price for regular gasoline was expected to touch $3.68 a gallon on Thanksgiving Day.
See: Thanks, inflation: Thanksgiving dinner costs 20% more this year as price of most ingredients spike
The good news for next year might be that rates finally reach a peak, which could help stabilize markets. The benchmark 10-year Treasury rate
TMUBMUSD10Y,
was near 3.8% this week, up from a low of 1.3% in December, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Higher rates push up borrowing costs for households and businesses, with the aim of slowing demand, and the economy.
