Holiday Shopping for Stocks

I hope you enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family yesterday.  I had a great time with my family. 

Today is Black Friday, a big shopping day for many. I’ll be shopping today as well, but not at malls.  I’ll be logging into my brokerage account.  The stock market is actually open today, but the NYSE trading floor will only be open until 1:00 PM. These short trading days can sometimes provide unique opportunities to pick up temporary discounts that can result from low volume trading.

Today is not the only opportunity for potential bargains in the stock market this holiday season.  On December 24th, the markets will also have a shortened trading day.  The NYSE Calendar is a handy page to lookup all the market holidays that you might want to add to your personal planner.

In addition, the last trading day of the year is Monday, December 31st. It’s the last day of the year to sell stocks at a loss and still be able to write them off on your income taxes. Some funds also dress up their holdings by selling off ugly ducklings and buying Wall Street darlings so their reported holdings look better to investors. This might be the perfect day to go shopping for financial stocks this year if you already haven’t picked up some shares in this unloved sector. I’m sure many will be dumping their losses in the financial sector on or just before December 31st.  Keep an eye out for these holiday sales in top quality names this season.