Luisa Rollenhagen is a journalist and investor who writes about financial planning for Wealthsimple. She is a past winner of the David James Burrell Prize for journalistic achievement and her work has been published in GQ Magazine and BuzzFeed. Luisa earned her M.A. in Journalism at New York University and is now based in Berlin, Germany.
The Nasdaq is a U.S. stock market that organizes companies by their market capitalization, i.e. the market value of a publicly traded company’s outstanding shares. Market capitalization tracks how many shares are currently in existence at the most recent share price. Market capitalization can be a good way to evaluate a company’s market worth, and it also determines how they’re ranked and traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Although Nasdaq is usually known for listing global electronics and tech companies, it also features mid- and small-cap businesses.
Wealthsimple offers an automated way to grow your money like the world's most sophisticated investors. Get started and we'll build you a personalized investment portfolio in a matter of minutes.Let’s say you’ve got your eyes set on a couple shares of a tech company you’ve seen slowly but surely grow throughout the past year, and you feel like now, as in this very day, is the time to buy. Well, you can, if the market’s open. And sometimes it isn’t, like on nights and weekends. And certain holidays.
Here’s a list of holidays the Nasdaq observes.
Observed dates | Holiday | Status |
---|---|---|
January 1st | New Year’s Day | Closed |
Third Monday of January | Martin Luther King, Jr. Day | Closed |
Third Monday of February | President’s Day | Closed |
Friday before Easter (late March/early April) | Good Friday | Closed |
Last Monday of May | Memorial Day | Closed |
July 3rd | Pre-Independence Day | Open from 9:30 am to 1 pm |
July 4th | Independence Day | Closed |
First Monday in September | Labor Day | Closed |
Last Thursday in November | Thanksgiving Day | Closed |
Last Friday in November | 2nd Thanksgiving Day | Open from 9:30 am to 1 pm |
December 24th | Christmas Eve | Open from 9:30 am to 1 pm |
December 25th | Christmas Day | Closed |
Outside of these holidays, Nasdaq is open Monday to Friday and usually trades from 9:30 am to 4 pm. For a more up-to-date list of individual years, you can check out Nasdaq’s calendar here.
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