Holidays and Weekends

[Malcolm Smith <Malcolm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was reading the manual for MetaStock 6.5 this morning about Holidays
and Weekends and the following questions popped up in my head:  how does
MetaStock know about Holidays and Weekends?

For example, I trade exclusively on the UK Exchange and I would be
interested in seeing how the Holidays are calculated?  Does MetaStock go
through the data files and look for missing days, or are the Holidays
around the world assumed to be the same as Uncle Sam's, or is there a
file used which holds dates and formulas (for example to calculate
Easter)?

Similarly with weekends; how are weekends (i.e. non-Trading Days) known
to MetaStock?  Before one answers, that's easy, weekends are Saturday
and Sundays, please consider that some markets close on Thursdays and
trade on Saturdays.  Once upon a time the UKSE used to trade on Saturday
mornings.  So, how is it done?

As an aside, I would like to say well done to the manual writers -
they've done a fine job.

Malc