Did they do this for Reagan? For Nixon? Anybody? I have never heard of this before.
Yes, it’s traditional for the markets to close for the death of a past or sitting president, and they closed for Reagan and Nixon. Background:
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2006/12/27/market-closes-for-ford/
Started with Ulysses S. Grant, apparently. They skipped Benjamin Harrison, and some presidents only got half days.
Post office is closed too. Seems pointless to me. I wouldn’t want business to cease just because I died.
BTW, here’s a list of special closings for the NYSE 1885 to date (WARNING - pdf):
http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/closings.pdf
They closed for the funerals of a few Vice Presidents, New York mayors and English monarchs as well, not to mention Grant’s birthday in 1897. And various and sundry other reasons. They used to be open on Saturdays, and sometimes closed on Saturday simply to catch up on paperwork.
Seems ol’ Jerry would have been a good candidate for one of those. 
Only because some poor hapless person tripped and accidentally rang the closing bell early. 
Back in 1996, when Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown died in a plane crash, President Clinton announced that financial markets would close for one day in his honor. I worked for a Wall Street firm at the time, and we all thought we were in for a bonus day off thanks to Mr. Brown’s demise. The head of the New York Stock Exchange politely reminded the President that the exchange was not under the control of the President of the US, and that the exchange would not close. Mr. Brown got a moment of silence, I think.
He must have felt pretty sheepish about that one. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to tell the president off like that? 
I do it every time I watch him on TV, and I have been doing it for longer than I have been eligible to vote and in every administration! You are sorely missing out, friend.
It doesn’t do any good, though, because he can’t hear me through the TV. It only works one way, as Ms. Wanderer (og, another doper convention I succumb to for the first time 
) constantly reminds me.
/Actually, og makes it two in one post. Ugh.
//Importing hated fark meme just for yuks.
///Fragmentation helps.
////With slashies!
Perhaps, but the President could close the Federal Reserve Bank. Wouldn’t that have some ripple effects through the markets?
Yesterday the entire federal government closed, at least in the DC area (I don’t know if it was nationwide). What a huge flush of taxpayers’ money down the toilet.