Is the Stock Market Open on Columbus Day 2026? Yes, but Bonds, Banks, and Settlement Are Closed

Yes. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are open for a full regular session on Columbus Day, Monday, October 12, 2026, from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET. The bond market is closed, banks are closed, and nothing settles that day. It is one of only two days a year with that split (Veterans Day, November 11, is the other), and the split is what trips people up.

Below: what is open and what is not, what the day looked like in each of the last ten years, how the closed bond market affects stocks, and the three things to check if you run automated trades. Education, not advice.

What is open on Columbus Day 2026

• Stocks: open, normal hours, 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET. Columbus Day is not on the NYSE holiday calendar. Pre-market and after-hours sessions run as usual.
• Options: open with the stock market.
• Bonds: closed. SIFMA recommends a full close for Treasuries, corporate bonds, municipal bonds, and money markets on October 12. Treasury yields you see quoted that day are Friday's.
• Banks and the Federal Reserve: closed. It is a federal holiday, so wire transfers and ACH deposits do not move until Tuesday.
• Settlement: none. The clearing houses accept trades but do not settle them. Stock trades from Friday, October 9 and Monday, October 12 settle on Tuesday, October 13.
• Crypto: open, as always. Our guide to crypto trading around the clock covers how that differs from stocks.

Is Columbus Day a quiet day for stocks? Ten years of data

The common claim is that Columbus Day is a sleepy half-attended session because the bond desks are home. We checked the S&P 500's close-to-close move on each Columbus Day session from 2016 through 2025, using daily closing prices from Yahoo Finance.

• Direction: 5 up days, 5 down days.
• Average move: +0.33%, which is noise with five of each.
• Average size of the move, up or down: 0.69%. The average for every October trading day in those same ten years was 0.72%.
• Biggest moves: +1.64% in 2020, +1.56% in 2025, and a 0.75% drop in 2022.

So the day is not quieter than a normal October session. It moves about as much as any other day in the most volatile month of the year, which is covered in our October 2026 market calendar. Treat it as a full trading day, because it is one.

How a closed bond market changes a stock market day

Stocks have spent 2026 reacting to interest rates. With the 10-year Treasury yield above 5%, the bond market has been the main input to every rally and sell-off. On Columbus Day that input is frozen.

• No fresh yield signal. Rate-sensitive groups such as banks, homebuilders, utilities, and REITs trade without their usual anchor. Moves in those names can be sharper on Monday or show up all at once on Tuesday when bonds reopen. Our guide to which sectors react to rates explains the mechanics.
• Treasury futures trade on a shortened schedule. CME Group runs modified hours on Columbus Day, with interest rate futures typically pausing around midday Central time, so professionals have a thin rate read in the morning and none in the afternoon. CME publishes the exact hours about two weeks ahead.
• Economic data releases are rare. Government agencies are closed, so the usual 8:30 AM report is absent and the open is driven by overnight news and earnings.
• Lower volume is possible, not guaranteed. Many institutional desks run with fewer people. Thinner books mean wider spreads at the open and close, so limit orders earn their keep. The best times of day to trade matter more than usual.

If you run automated trades: three things to check

We build an auto-trader, and the exchange calendar is one of the things it has to get right. For Columbus Day our system treats the day exactly as the exchanges do: a normal session for stocks, with crypto scanning continuing around the clock. The checks that matter for any automated setup:

• Deposits will not arrive. Money sent to your brokerage on Friday or over the weekend does not clear until Tuesday. If your system sizes trades from available cash, Monday's cash is whatever settled by Friday.
• Sales do not settle until Tuesday. With no settlement on Monday, cash from a Monday sale is unsettled a day longer than usual. Brokers that only let you trade with settled cash will feel this.
• Mark the half days, not just the closures. The dates that catch automated systems are the 1:00 PM early closes, when an afternoon order simply never fills. In 2026 those are Friday, November 27 and Thursday, December 24.

JorgAI applies your position size, stop, and daily loss limit to every trade on every session the exchange is open, holiday or not, so a thin Monday is handled by the same rules as a busy Tuesday.

The rest of the 2026 market holiday calendar

From the NYSE and SIFMA calendars, verified October 3, 2026:

• Monday, October 12, Columbus Day: stocks open, bonds closed.
• Wednesday, November 11, Veterans Day: stocks open, bonds closed.
• Thursday, November 26, Thanksgiving: stocks and bonds closed.
• Friday, November 27: stocks close at 1:00 PM ET, bonds at 2:00 PM.
• Thursday, December 24, Christmas Eve: stocks close at 1:00 PM ET, bonds at 2:00 PM.
• Friday, December 25, Christmas: stocks and bonds closed.
• Friday, January 1, 2027, New Year's Day: stocks and bonds closed.

Common questions about the stock market on Columbus Day

Is the stock market open on Columbus Day 2026?

Yes. The NYSE and Nasdaq hold a full session on Monday, October 12, 2026, from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET.

Is the bond market open on Columbus Day?

No. SIFMA recommends a full close for US bond markets on October 12, 2026. Trading resumes Tuesday, October 13.

Do stock trades settle on Columbus Day?

No. Banks and the Federal Reserve are closed, so trades from Friday, October 9 and Monday, October 12 settle on Tuesday, October 13.

Is Veterans Day a stock market holiday?

No. Stocks trade a full session on Wednesday, November 11, 2026. The bond market is closed, the same split as Columbus Day.

When is the next stock market holiday after Columbus Day?

Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 26, 2026, when stocks and bonds are closed. The next day is a 1:00 PM early close for stocks.

Does an auto-trader run on Columbus Day?

Ours does, because the stock exchanges are open. The things to check are cash that has not settled and deposits that will not arrive until Tuesday. If you want rules that handle every session the same way, you can set them up in JorgAI in a few minutes.

Holiday dates are from the NYSE and SIFMA calendars as of October 3, 2026. Historical figures are from Yahoo Finance daily closes. JorgAI is a software tool, not an investment adviser. Trading involves risk of loss.