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While the creation of a new federal holiday is rare, an addition to the market closure calendar is even rarer. King’s birthday is the most recent holiday added to this list, but it didn’t happen for more than a decade after becoming a federal law. Until 1998, the day was marked with a minute of silence at noon, but trading continued.

If deciding to close for Juneteenth, the exchanges would need to formally amend their rules by adding June 19 to the list of dates trading is closed and submit those changes to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which Congress oversees. Because the change is administrative in nature, the exchanges would not need SEC approval for the amendment to take effect.

That said, the SEC can ultimately say “no.” Federal law gives it the authority to suspend rule changes if deemed necessary. If the SEC took that approach, it would need to explain the grounds for potential disapproval and offer the exchange a hearing over the proposed rule change before making the final decision.

Of the current holiday market closures, Labor Day is the second newest, added in 1887. Perhaps more than anything, the reason for how seldom holidays are added comes down to the role of exchanges in keeping markets open and capital moving in a country at the center of the global financial structure, and not in opposition to the reasons for the holidays.

In fact, the NYSE has removed more holiday closure dates in the last hundred years than it has added. Until 1953, the exchange closed all day for Lincoln’s birthday and Columbus Day. For more than 80 years, the NYSE either closed for the full day or for two minutes on Veteran’s Day, but since 2007, the holiday has been acknowledged with a two-minute moment of silence before the start of an otherwise normal trading day.

It’s worth noting, a trading holiday does not need to be a federal holiday. For example, Lincoln’s birthday has never been a federal holiday, nor has Election Day, on which the exchange closed for every year until 1968. The trading holiday on Memorial Day began before it was a federal holiday, though a similar situation is hard to imagine today. The only current market closure that isn’t also a federal holiday is Good Friday and that tradition stretches back to the exchange’s beginning, long before the SEC existed.

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