Stock performance prior to Federal holidays

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of Federal holidays on a stock price. This research analyzed stock performance for the five trading days before each of the ten Federal holidays. Forty data points are found by the difference between a buy price (six days before a holiday) and a selling price (one day before a holiday). A 95% confidence interval is calculated using the difference of two sample means of the buy and sell prices. The mean of the buy prices is 62.48, and the mean of the sell prices is 61.92. The confidence interval of the difference between these samples means is -20.15 and 21.28. The study found that specific stocks have reliable and significant trends in the relationship with specific Federal holidays. These trends are highly investable because of reliability and significance, though only in specific cases does there exist investable opportunities.