Stocks usually do pretty well during Thanksgiving week
Buy the hype, sell the leftovers.
Owning the S&P 500 during the week of Thanksgiving - during which the stock market is only open 3.5 days (closed on Thursday, open just a half day on Friday) - has been a pretty good trade for the last 70 or so years.
According to research from Bespoke, if you owned the index only during the week of Thanksgiving since 1942, when the last Thursday of November was officially designated as the Thanksgiving holiday, your return would be 48.8%.
Not too shabby! Alternatively, stocks usually go up.
Over the last 20 years, the average return during Thanksgiving week has been +0.81% and the week is positive 60% of the time.
This average, however, is pulled higher by a furious 12% rally seen during Thanksgiving week 2008, which was more or less tha nadir of the financial crisis and yet still about 4 months away from the stock market's ultimate bottom.
The median return since 1995 is a more modest +0.13%.
