New York, N.Y., March 9, 2015 – SIFMA has confirmed its early close recommendation of 12:00 p.m., ET, on Friday, April 3, for the trading of U.S. dollar-denominated fixed-income securities in the United States in observance of the Good Friday holiday.

Consistent with past practice, SIFMA is making an early close, rather than a full close, recommendation due to the scheduled release of Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March 2015 employment data the morning of April 3.

Also consistent with past practice, SIFMA recommends that Friday, April 3, not be treated as a good settlement day for secondary market transactions in U.S. government securities, federal agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, corporate bonds, and municipal bonds.  Additionally, SIFMA recommends for U.S. government and federal agency debt a T+2 settlement cycle for trades entered on Friday, April 3.  SIFMA is making no settlement recommendations for money market transactions.

SIFMA also notes the following regarding April 3:

• The CME Group’s trading floor for Foreign Exchange and Interest Rates will close at 10:00am CT (See: CME Group’s Chicago Floor Holiday Schedule).  CME Group’s CME Globex® for CME Equity Products will close at 8:15am CT, and CME Interest Rates and Foreign Exchange will close at 10:15 CDT (See: CME Globex Holiday Schedule).
• The Depository Trust Company will be open for money market instrument settlement processing (See: DTC 2015 Holiday Schedule press release).  However, there will be no Continuous Net Settlement (CNS) processing on April 3.
• The Fixed Income Clearing Corporation will be closed. (See: FICC 2015 Holiday Notice)
•  The National Securities Clearing Corporation will be closed. (See: NSCC holiday notice for 2015)
• The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will be closed. – (See: MSRB Holiday Schedule)
• For the purposes of TRACE reporting, FINRA will be closed. (See: FINRA 2015 TRACE Holiday Calendar)
• The Federal Reserve Bank of New York will be open. (See: Holidays Observed by the Federal Reserve, 2014-2017)

These recommendations apply to trading of U.S. dollar-denominated government securities, mortgage- and asset-backed securities, over-the-counter investment-grade and high-yield corporate bonds, municipal bonds and secondary money market trading in bankers’ acceptances, commercial paper and Yankee and Euro certificates of deposit.

SIFMA’s recommended early and full market closes are recommendations only; each member firm should decide for itself whether its fixed-income departments remain open for trading.  All SIFMA recommendations are subject to change due to market conditions.

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SIFMA is the voice of the U.S. securities industry, representing the broker-dealers, banks and asset managers whose 889,000 employees provide access to the capital markets, raising over $2.4 trillion for businesses and municipalities in the U.S., serving retail clients with over $16 trillion in assets and managing more than $62 trillion in assets for individual and institutional clients including mutual funds and retirement plans. SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., is the U.S. regional member of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA). For more information, visit http://www.sifma.org.