With all the craziness of the past few weeks, many investors could use a day off to catch their breath, and that's what we'll get later this week. Equity markets will be closed on Friday in observance of Good Friday. So far during the season of Lent—the more than 40-day period between Ash Wednesday and Easter—markets have appeared to have given up buying. Historically, the bulk of this period (the last close before Ash Wednesday through the last close before Good Friday) has had a positive seasonal bias with an average gain of 1.83% and positive performance 67% of the time.  While there are still a few days left, the 5.68% decline this year puts the S&P on pace for the fourth worst performance during Lent of all years since the start of the five-day trading week in 1953. The only years with larger declines were a 10.86% drop in 1980, a 10.82% decline in 2020, and a 5.92% decline in 2001.  Again, there are still a few days left, and the elevated volatility recently could change that ranking, but we'd also note in 1994 there was a similar-sized drop to now at 5.66%.

In the chart below, we show the average daily change in the S&P 500 for each day during the holiday-shortened week in addition to Easter Monday. We also include a look at full-week performance for the week and the following week.  As shown, the week of Easter has typically held a positive tone with the largest and most consistent gains coming right before the long weekend on Thursday.  Monday and Tuesday, on the other hand, have seen the S&P 500 fall more often than not. Regardless, for the full span of "Holy Week", the S&P 500 has averaged a 0.66% gain with positive returns just under two-thirds of the time. After coming back from the holiday, stocks haven't tended to continue rallying. Easter Monday has averaged a decline of 16 bps with positive performance less than half of the time. Once again though, the full week after Easter has seen the S&P 500 generally trade higher.

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