Dollars and Jens
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Nasdaq to Close Tuesday
As you may have heard, former President of the United States Gerald Ford died on Tuesday.
It was expected that the stock exchanges would close out of respect for the 38th president. Financial markets have traditionally closed for presidential funerals, the last time being the burial of President Ronald Reagan in June 2004.So if you want to trade a Nasdaq stock in the next five days, you'll have to do it tomorrow. Of course, Warren Buffett has said
[snip]
There was some speculation the markets would try to have at least some stock trading on Tuesday because of the four-day closure that will also include the weekend. The last time Wall Street was closed this long was in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, when it was closed for six days including a weekend.
After we buy a stock... we would not be disturbed if markets closed for a year or two. We don't need a daily quote on our 100% position in See's or H. H. Brown to validate our well-being. Why, then, should we need a quote on our 7% interest in Coke?If you're not comfortable with your holdings, you should trade tomorrow anyway. And if a four-day closure of the market makes you uncomfortable with your holdings, then you shouldn't consider yourself comfortable with your holdings.
There are also tax reasons to sell tomorrow rather than next week, if you're sitting on a capital loss. But those existed before this announcement.
I first saw the equivalent story by the Wall Street Journal, but I decided to link to a free version.
