Very Superstitious, or A History of Stupidity on the Street: Scene One.

So the NYSE was closed today for Good Friday. When I first started working at Big Anonymous Financial Services Firm, I was kind of floored by this: the one religious holiday the market follows is Good Friday? It made no sense. So I asked a bunch of people, and as it turns out, it has nothing to do with religion. Instead it’s pure superstition: in what became known as the Panic of 1907, the market fell by roughly 30% on Good Friday that year. And in their calm, rational way, the Financial Powers That Were decided then and there that the way to prevent another market crash was NEVER TO OPEN ON GOOD FRIDAY AGAIN.

Which is, essentially, financial management by Boy Scout manual -- as in “Screw regulations. All we have to do is play dead that day! Don’t you see? If we pretend like we’re dead, the bear will NEVER SEE US! Get it? It’s perfect!”

As far as I can tell, Wall Street still makes its decisions pretty much this way.