Keeping US markets open every day

During a financial crisis, the US markets should be open everyday. That includes Christmas and the Fourth of July. It includes Thanksgiving and Martin Luther King Day.

The reason is that US investors and the US banking system lose a day in their ability to react to news like the big UK banking and financial system bailout. While markets in Asia and Europe trade and make efficient work of creating or destroying the value of shares in companies which are effected by the news, the measurement of the worth of American shares is frozen. Investors have to pass up an ability to trade. Because of that a British bank's shares can be revalued in the stock market. A US bank's cannot.

If the US is going to present itself as the center of the global capital markets, it cannot afford to have "days off" The big news from the UK proves the case. According to several news reports, Carlos Slim will lend money to The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT). The news is to a large extent useless beyond the fate of the company itself.

The US markets should be open every day. Otherwise capital use is inefficient.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.