Good Friday is solely a Christian and religious holiday, and is not a U.S. “legal public holiday” under U.S. law.
see: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/5/6103.html
Good Friday isn’t even the main Easter holiday, Easter Sunday is. The Federal gov’t (i.e. post office, IRS) is open on Good Friday. Banks are open as well. So why are the stock and commodities markets closed in the U.S. on a religious holiday? When and how did this practice originate?
When I was a wee lad, banks in California closed at noon on Good Friday, but Jerry Brown stopped that practice.
I imagine that the Good Friday holiday for the market exists because they’ve never changed it and it gives the traders a chance to get a jump on a long weekend.
I suppose the US could switch and be like Canada and take off Easter Monday, but that would be too Canadian for our tastes.
Years ago, many Christian churches held services on the afternoon of Good Friday. So many employees wanted time off to attend the service that it became more practical to close. Add to that Jewish employees who want to attend Passover services (when the two dates overlap).
There are no national holidays in the United States. The link gives the holidays that apply to federal workers. No other employer in the U.S. is obligated to follow these holidays or designate any days at all as holidays.
Holidays are purely communal, in that they follow the practices of the community the employer is in. Employers who assume that a great many people will want the day off for religious reasons will often just designate that day a holiday. Good Friday and Easter are often designated as holidays for this reason, but millions of other employers don’t bother to do so.
Since the majority of religious believers in the U.S. are Christian, Christian holidays are the norm. But there are places with large Jewish populations - New York City and Connecticut, e.g. - in which Jewish holidays are observed by secular institutions just for purely practical reasons.
Easter Monday isn’t a statutory holiday in Canada. Some companies provide that day off, some don’t.
Well London and Frankfurt and the Bourse are closed so you’d be talking to yourselves, or maybe Tokyo - if anyone still talks to them.
Sorry, just assumed that since my calendar has the day marked in red and says on it “Easter Monday (Canada)” it was statutory.
I get Monday off, but that’s because it’s the observance of Cesar Chavez’s Birthday.
Yes, I do work for the government.
I only provided the link to illustrate that the U.S. government doesn’t even view “Good Friday” as a holiday, so why do quasi-public entities like the exchanges close on that day?
Additionally, if it was simply because no one would trade for lack of interest (there’s no prohibition on not conducting business on good friday from a Christian belief standpoint, as far as I know) then why are the exchanges open for a half-day the day after Thanksgiving when the volume is especially low? The day after Thanksgiving seems a more logical choice for the exchanges to be closed.
One more thing, if it was for “practical” reasons as people seem to be implying, then why does the NY mercantile exchange open again on EASTER SUNDAY evening at 7p.m.? That fact would make it look like Good Friday is more important than Easter Sunday.
Probably because services are over by then, and the issue of massive numbers of people taking off work has gone away. “Lack of interest” has nothing to do with it, as far as I can tell. It’s purely an issue of the number of bodies available.
I only provided the link to illustrate that the U.S. government doesn’t even view “Good Friday” as a holiday, so why do quasi-public entities like the exchanges close on that day?
Additionally, if it was simply for lack of interest (there’s no prohibition on not conducting business on Good Friday from a Christian belief standpoint, as far as I know) then why are the exchanges open for a half-day the day after Thanksgiving when the volume is especially low? The day after Thanksgiving seems a more logical choice for the exchanges to be closed.
One more thing, if it was for “practical” reasons as people seem to be implying, then why does the NY mercantile exchange open again on EASTER SUNDAY evening at 7p.m.(as it does on most normal Sundays that aren’t holidays)? That fact would make it look like Good Friday is more important than Easter Sunday!
Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, and the exchange is closed on the evening of the 25th, and reopens on the evening of the 26th. So if Easter is considered a holiday, why isn’t the exchange likewise closed on Easter Sunday instead of Good Friday?
While security exchanges are regulated by the Federal government, they are still private entities. And they can establish whatever day they want to give its employees off.
The NYSE is owned by its members although its governing board is now appointed independently in the wake of the Grasso scandal.
The other exchanges operate in similar fashion. The SEC oversees securities trading, but they are concerned more with fraud than whether or not a pariticular exchange is open on a certain day.
Exchanges are basically privately run entities, I don’t know what explanation you want beyond, “they just decided to set their policy that way.”
Probably the same reason lots of Chinese restaurants are closed on Christmas, sure the Chinese who run the place probably don’t celebrate Christmas but there are just some days when through experience and common sense they realize it’s best to just be closed.
Plus exchanges tend to be traditionalist places. They need a damn good reason to change a long standing policy like being closed on Good Friday. When you look at how many places aren’t open on Good Friday it just kind of makes intrinsic sense that the stock exchange wouldn’t be open either. Now, as for your questions about the day after Thanksgiving, it’s hard to say, I don’t necessarily know why you think that has to be linked with Good Friday though.
As for why the NYMEX is open on those days that’s hard to understand and I don’t have much experience with the NYMEX. I know the NYSE doesn’t open at all on weekends (9:30-4:00 M-F strictly) and most major stock exchanges I’m aware of follow that general trend.
The NYMEX is open on weekends at weird hours to deal with materials that are traded in Europe.
The trading floor is open M-F I believe. Or what they list as “Open Outcry trading”. The other trading is done electronically.
Where do you live?! 
Around here it’s well-known that Chinatown is open and thriving on Christmas and in fact the stereotypical thing for Jews to do on the 25th is hit the movies and then go tuck into some mei fun or what have you…
Different organizations have different holiday closings for all kinds of reasons. Here, all California state offices will be closed on Thursday, March 31 for Cesar Chavez Day.
Ed
As mentioned above, the exchanges are private organizations that can set whatever rules they like…with a lot of SEC oversight. But the SEC really doesn’t care about holidays. The most recent pressure (so far unsuccessful, I believe) has been to close the markets on Martin Luther King day - the exchanges have resisted because [channeling Anita Bryant] “A day without trading is like a day without income!”
For some reason, the state of California doesn’t move the holiday to a Monday. I work for a municpal government and I’m off for the Cesar Chavez holiday today. That’s going to really confuse people.
However, State of California employees get BOTH Lincoln’s and Washington’s Birthdays off, but I only get Washington’s, aka Presidents Day.