The stock market is easily spooked these days. It’s not great timing for a quadruple witching day.
Four times a year stock-index futures, stock index options, single stock options, and single stock futures all expire on the same day—it can lead to elevated volatility and trading volumes as investors close out positions.
Today just happens to be one of those days—right in the middle of the Iran war.
Maybe the market can handle it—investors are no strangers to volatility. Even the VIX, a measure of volatility, has been volatile itself—between highs of 35 and lows of 20 over the past two weeks. Oil prices have also swung sharply, and regularly, with Brent crude spiking as high as $119 a barrel on a couple of occasions before tumbling back. Big intraday reversals have also been a feature of stock market trading.
The freaky Friday may not be a problem for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, though, if history is anything to go by. The index has climbed on each of the last seven quadruple witching days, according to Dow Jones Market Data. In 2024 and 2025, theS&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose on four of those days and fell on the other four.
Witching or not, Friday hasn’t been a good day for the stock market in recent weeks. The S&P 500 has fallen on the last three Fridays—dating back to the day before the U.S. first attacked Iran. Though, it’s then risen on all three following Mondays.
A spooky trend perhaps, especially as one of those was Friday the 13th.
But there’s a more serious problem facing investors at the end of these volatile weeks.
“The past few Friday trading sessions have been challenging since the Iran war began, as some investors can be hesitant to maintain their positions heading into the weekend when more negative headlines from the Middle East can emerge,” Kerux Financial chief investment officer, David Laut, said.
A lot can happen in a day, as investors well know, but even more can change in the space of a weekend. How to close up the week when the war rages on is becoming a real dilemma for investors.