The Day After Thanksgiving: How Stocks Perform
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Mashed potatoes.
Stuffing.
Pumpkin pie.
Three NFL games to watch.
The stock market is closed today, and I hope you get to enjoy all of those things and more while surrounded by the people you care about most.
But before you dive headfirst into that turkey, as a quick reminder, the stock market will be open tomorrow until 1 p.m., and I wanted to throw out a quick look at how stocks have performed the day after Thanksgiving.
Between 1957 and 2020, the S&P 500 posted an average daily return of 0.3% on the trading day after Thanksgiving.
Adding just a little more context, positive returns were more consistent between 1965 and 1992, as the S&P 500 closed lower in only five sessions during that time.
There was also a positive return every year between 1965 and 1987.
Getting into more recent times, from 2000 to 2020, the S&P 500 posted an average return of 0.23% with a 66% win rate.
Of course, we know past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.
And as we’ve seen with everything from Federal Reserve rate hikes to sky-high inflation to recession fears, the news cycle can drive the market up or down in an instant.
But if history is on our side, things will be relatively calm on Black Friday, and the market as a whole should finish higher.