Almanac Trader

In the table below we went back to 1971, the year the Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect, moving Memorial Day and most other federal holidays to Monday. The Friday before Memorial has become getaway day on The Street and volume can be diminished and trading uninspired. However, this has not stopped the market from making some sizable moves during the week. In 2022, DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ, and Russell 2000 all jumped over 6%.

DJIA is the weakest in the week before Memorial Day up 27 of the past 53 years and a paltry 0.11% average gain. S&P is a bit better, up 64.2% of the time with an average gain of 0.32%. NASDAQ is up 66.0% of the time, averaging a gain of 0.45% while the Russell 2000 takes the lead ahead of the official kick-off to summer up 73.3% of the time with an average gain of 0.71%. Over the last 20 years, since 2004, all four indexes have been stronger. Russell 2000 and NASDAQ still held the advantage up 80% and 75% of the time respectively. Average performance improved to 1.59% from Russell 2000 and 1.39% from NASDAQ.