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Thanksgiving week 2026: a plan for Wednesday 25 to Friday 27 November

US Thanksgiving is Thursday 26 November 2026. US stock and bond markets are shut that day, and on Friday 27 November the stock market closes at 13:00 New York, with the bond market following at 14:00. By then both the UK and the US are back on standard time, so 13:00 New York is 18:00 London.

Spot FX keeps trading throughout, but New York participation falls away, and the useful liquid window on Friday is London morning until about 16:00. Thursday has no US data, so what's left is European flow and whatever arrives from Asia.

A plan around that. Wednesday is normal, but note that the US weekly jobless claims are moved forward from Thursday to Wednesday that week, so 13:30 London on the 25th carries a release that normally lands a day later. Thursday: half size, London morning only. Friday: half size, flat by 16:00.

The cost side is simple arithmetic. If your usual stop is 6 pips and the average spread is 0.8, the spread is 13% of the stop. If the spread widens to 1.5 on a thin afternoon, it's 25%. The same setup then has a worse break-even hurdle, so sizing and the clock matter more than the chart does.

From the Asian side, Thursday is a normal day for Tokyo and Hong Kong, so the Asian session itself is not affected. However, the lack of US participation can make the move into the European session quieter than usual. On Friday, the early close in the US means the afternoon in Asia carries more weight than normal, since there is less US flow to follow. For scalpers, a lighter schedule and smaller size that week seems sensible.

Monday 30 November is month end. The WM/Reuters 4pm London fix draws month end rebalancing orders, and the benchmark is calculated over a five minute window around 16:00 London. After a thin holiday week, Monday afternoon can be lumpier than usual. I'd mark 15:55 to 16:05 London on the chart and treat that window like a data release: no new entries before it, and no stops sitting in an area the fix flow could sweep. Not every month end produces a visible move, and some produce a large one, so the plan has to work in both cases, which is easier if you're flat or at reduced size during the window.

US index CFDs follow the cash market's holiday at most brokers: closed on Thursday and an early close on Friday, with the early close around 18:00 London for stock index products. Check the symbol specification in MT5 before relying on US30 or US100 late on Friday afternoon. Right click the symbol in Market Watch, open Specification, and read the trading sessions. Some brokers shorten the hours without much notice, and the quotes after the early close can be stale or wide. If you trade an index that day, it's the session table that tells you when it actually stops, not the habits of an ordinary Friday.

Here's how the three days could look in risk terms, using a $20,000 account and 0.5% as the normal risk per trade. Wednesday: $100 per trade, normal limits. Thursday: $50 per trade, London morning only, maximum three trades. Friday: $50 per trade, flat by 16:00, maximum three trades. That caps the downside of the two thin days at about $300 if everything goes wrong, against $600 for the same number of trades at full size. Fewer trades also means less spread paid on days when each trade costs a larger share of the stop. The numbers are only examples, so scale them to your own account.

Thursday itself isn't quiet all day. The Asian session on Thursday morning is unaffected by the US holiday, so USDJPY and the Aussie pairs trade normally until London, and London morning looks like any other London morning. The holiday shows up from about 13:00 London, when New York would normally start contributing. That means you can't just call Thursday a dead day. The first half is ordinary and the second half is where spreads get wider and ranges get smaller. A plan that cuts size at 13:00 rather than all day Thursday keeps the good hours and drops the thin ones.