I decided to use the day off to do some entirely useless analysis of 3-day weekends.
Summary
Buying at the close on Friday and selling at the open on Tuesday averages a 56% success rate and 0.03% returns. However, if you held until Tuesday’s close or tried to buy at open on Tuesday and sell at the close, your results are worse (and much worse over the last 10 years).
Data
Here is a Google Sheet with all 3-Day Weekend Returns since SPY started in 1993. It shows the Friday Close to Tuesday Open returns, Friday Close to Tuesday Close returns, and Tuesday Open to Tuesday Close returns, for all 3-day weekends.
Analysis
There have been 188 3-day weekends. 56% of the time, the SPY opens higher on Tuesday morning than it closed on Friday night with average returns of 0.03%.
The best day was September, 8th, 1998. If you would’ve bought on Friday, September 4th, you would’ve woken up to 3.2% gains on Tuesday.
The worst day was January 22, 2008. You would’ve woken up down 3.7%.
in the last 10 years, 3-day weekends have been better. There have been 64 3-day weekends. Only 52% have been positive, but the average returns have been 0.08%!
Tables
Overall Returns
| Date | Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Best Return | 1998-09-08 | 3.20% |
| Worst Return | 2008-01-22 | -3.67% |
| Average Return | 0.03% | |
| Annualized Returns | 7.8% | |
| Success Rate | 55.85% |
Last 10 Years
| Date | Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Best Return | 2020-05-26 | 2.20% |
| Worst Return | 2020-09-08 | -1.71% |
| Average Return | 0.08% | |
| Annualized Return | 22% | |
| Success Rate | 51.56% |
Conclusion
Not very useful nor very interesting lol.
*Update:
Someone wanted to see normal 2-day weekend returns.
| Date | Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Best Return | 2008-10-13 | 6.07% |
| Worst Return | 2020-03-16 | -10.45% |
| Average Return | 0.04% | |
| Annualized Returns | 10.5% | |
| Success Rate | 57.61% |
**Update:
Someone wanted the Friday before 3-day weekend returns (Friday Close / Friday Open). It’d take longer to limit to just Fridays, so I did the day before a 3-day weekend (either Thursday or Friday).
The average return was exactly 0% since 1993, but the last 5 years looks quite a bit different (may just be due to the small amount of data).
| Date | Value | |
|---|---|---|
| Best Return | 2022-05-27 | 1.8% |
| Worst Return | 2022-09-02 | -2.01% |
| Average Return | 0.10% | |
| Annualized Returns | 29% | |
| Success Rate | 66% |
