In the United States and Canada, Thanksgiving Day is an annual national holiday to celebrate the harvest and other blessings that have come from the previous year. In the United States, Thanksgiving celebrations commemorate the first Thanksgiving feast shared between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag shared a harvest feast in 1621 that is recognized today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies.
The Thanksgiving meal is the most commonly observed ritual. Families often celebrate Thanksgiving with large meals and religious services. Thanksgiving usually includes turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce, corn, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pies and varies by family and culture.
The fourth Thursday in November is celebrated as Thanksgiving Day on the North American continent. It is obvious why this holiday is so popular as the Thanksgiving occasion always falls on a Thursday, by adding this day to the calendar a four-day holiday weekend happens. Shops are open, and it marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
On Thanksgiving Day, the stock market will indeed be closed. But don’t call it a four-day weekend: on Black Friday, investors still have to come out.
The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday when retailers offer steep discounts to kick off the holiday season. Retailers, including jewelers, are particularly vulnerable during this season. It is expected that close to 158.3 million Americans shop online or in stores during this year’s Thanksgiving weekend, which is a slight increase from 2020. In addition to people who will shop several days during the Black Friday weekend, the NRF predicts that 227.9 million shoppers will shop online or in-store.
Black Friday and Stocks:
Most businesses consider Thanksgiving an important day, especially those in the food industry. However, US stock markets are closed on Thanksgiving and are only open for half the day on Black Friday. Even though global markets are open, Thanksgiving alone is unlikely to impact stock market trading due to the significance of the day after.
Having extra days off for Thanksgiving or Christmas can affect the stock market. The markets tend to experience higher trading activity and higher returns just before a holiday or a long weekend, a phenomenon known as the holiday effect or weekend effect.
The majority of analysts and investors disagree that Black Friday is indicative of either the fourth quarter or markets as a whole. They suggest that it only affects short-term gains or losses. On Black Friday, Nov. 26, many retailers will offer holiday bargains to those shopping for gifts, including Macy’s Inc. M, -7.37% and Walmart WMT, 0.32%. For the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1992, US exchange operators – NYSE, American Stock Exchange, and Nasdaq – initially planned a 2 p.m. Eastern close, two hours earlier than the usual 4 p.m. bell. In the following year, exchanges chose to close their markets three hours earlier, at 1 p.m. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Friday afterward are usually quieter than normal, non-holiday trading periods.
