There are many questions about trading days and what time to trade. And others like when stock markets close and when stock markets open. That’s why I’m going to clear all your doubts about trade days.

Let’s start from the very beginning.

What is a trading day?

A trading day is considered to be a day where the trader executes a trading operation or start and conclude a position.
So, if you are holding a position for a few days the system will only register on the first day. This means the day where you open a position and will register the ending of that.

That’s pretty simple, another of the most common questions about day trading days and times is:

How many trading days are in a year?

For obvious purpose, I’ll be talking about how many trading days are in 2022. As we can find on Wikipedia about the trading days in 2022:

There are exactly 252 trade days in 2022. January and February will only have 19 trading days, those two were the months with the fewer days for trading. And the month with the most trading days was March with 23.

The average of available trade days is 21 per month. Out of 365 days, 105 are weekend days (most markets are closed on weekends). 7 out of 9 existing holidays will happen on weekdays, those days the exchange market will be closed.

Recommended Read: time in force

Trading Calendar

There are 9 holidays where the market is closed. Those are Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, President Day, Good Friday, New years day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, and Thanksgiving Day and Christmas day.

Every trader should know the days before Independence Day, the day after Christmas, and Thanksgiving. The market exchanges will close early. For example, on May 28 the Friday Before Memorial Day the bonds market closed at 2 p.m

Now you must be wondering how many trading days left in 2022

Well, it’s easy to calculate how many trading days are left in 2022 just by knowing what I wrote before. But here is a quick look at it:

We’re in September right now, right? The remaining trading holiday where the exchanges are closed are:
Monday, July 5 Independence Day
Monday, Sept. 6 Labor Day
Thursday, Nov. 25 Thanksgiving Day
Friday, Dec. 24 Christmas Eve.

That means starting from September 7 we have 80 trading days left in 2022.

Stock and Bond Market Hours

Now we can take down those question about what hours and days are US markets open and close:

When does the NYSE and NASDAQ open?

For the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market, the opening time is at 9:30 AM Eastern Time only on weekdays. And the closing time for both is at 4 P.M

What hours are bonds tradable on a trading day?

Bond markets are available to trade at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m on a trading day, except for holy days and early-closure days.
The stock markets exchange and the bonds have a different closing time on specific days we talked about earlier. Those are called early-closure days. Stock Markets close at 1 p.m. and the Bond markets close 2 p.m.

Conclusion on trading days

You can now stop wondering “is the stock market open today?” Because with this post you will know everything a trader needs to know about trading days and times.

You need to add those to your trading strategy. Now you know how many trading days are in a month and the stock market closed days, you will have a better trading experience over time.