Investors will see a shortened session Friday to end a holiday-abbreviated week on Wall Street.
U.S. stock exchanges were closed for Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, and reopen only for an abbreviated session on Black Friday, with trading ending at 1 p.m. Eastern.
The U.S. bond market was also closed on Thursday. It will also see an early finish, closing at 2 p.m. on Black Friday.
Through Wednesday’s session, stocks were on track to keep with the positive historical track record for Thanksgiving week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.50% and Nasdaq Composite each up 1.3% and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.59% rising 1.6%.
See: Here’s the stock market’s Thanksgiving week track record — stretching back to 1950
It has been a rough year in financial markets with the major equity benchmarks in a bear market and most bond categories producing negative returns. As a proxy for the bond market, the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF AGG, +0.60% is down roughly 15% on the year so far, according to FactSet. That compares with the S&P 500 index’s SPX, +0.59% 15.5% drop in 2022.
Also read: Thanksgiving and Black Friday waste have a costly environmental impact, which also hurts our wallets
While the U.S. economy already fully reopened last Thanksgiving with the help of COVID vaccines and boosters, this year high inflation means consumers paid more for their Thanksgiving dinners this year.
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, 3.737% was near 3.7% early Friday 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.
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