When I first began my trading journey, the single available market was the ASX, which was not a fully integrated exchange at the time; there were separate exchanges in Melbourne and Sydney. The market opened at 10:00 a.m. and closed at 4:00 p.m., and provision was made for a long lunch for brokers to wander down to the Melbourne club and spend the oversized commissions they were receiving. The derivatives market for equities traders was limited to SPI (SharePriceIndex) contract traded on the SFE, which had an eye-watering initial deposit of $50,000 per contract.
The world has changed.
The push for 24-hour stock trading in the U.S. is gaining momentum as exchanges and brokerages seek to accommodate global investors and retail traders. Nasdaq, the second-largest U.S. stock exchange, has announced plans to implement 24-hour trading five days a week starting in the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approval. This move aims to enhance accessibility for international investors and retail traders seeking opportunities beyond traditional market hours.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has also expanded its trading hours, securing approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October 2024 to extend trading to 22 hours daily. This adjustment reflects the growing importance of accommodating different time zones and the increasing demand for flexible trading options.
Meanwhile, the SEC has granted approval to 24 Exchange (24X), a new trading platform backed by Point72 Ventures, to operate the first round-the-clock stock exchange in the U.S. This platform plans a phased rollout, starting with regular market hours before expanding to overnight sessions from Sunday through Thursday.
Brokerages are also adapting to this shift. Robinhood and Interactive Brokers have introduced extended-hours trading, offering access to a broader range of U.S. stocks and ETFs beyond standard trading hours.
The world is not what it was decades ago, and this is coming as a bit of a shock for some and fodder for the doom and gloom merchants.
Those who espouse the end of the investing world with this move to expanded trading hours operate from a poverty mindset rooted in the past. Their objections seem to revolve around a few key points.
- Increased volatility—unfortunately, it is that word again. Most people who use the word volatility do not know what it means. Just because prices move does not mean that something is volatile. My interpretation is that what they really mean when they say volatility is that prices moved against me, which is unfair. Volatility in its truest form is a function of all systems – you don’t need an increase in trading hours to generate an increase in volatility. There have already been significant periods of high volatility, with the market only trading for eight hours a day.
- Liquidity will be an issue – the thinking here is that liquidity will stay the same and not increase. This shows both a lack of imagination and a misunderstanding about how markets that are already open 24 hours a day cope. We have an existing model for 24-hour markets in the FX world. Many think that the FX market is a single global homogenous market – it isn’t. It is a series of discrete markets that open sequentially, thereby giving the illusion of a single market that is always open. The FX market has a liquidity flow to it that traders are well aware of and can cope with. Liquidity builds throughout the 24 session peaking in the overlap between London and New York. What this means for local traders is that instead of waiting until the dark of night to enter pistions they can do so in the early evening. There is also an assumption implicit in the liquidity argument that Asia and Europe will not take advantage of the extended hours and provide an increase in liquidity by dealing at times that are more convenient for them. If there is an opportunity to trade, people will take advantage of it.
- It will be the end of the world. This argument is a fairly poor one as the increase in trading hours will entice people to trade recklessly at all hours of the day and night. Here is a surprise for you—the people who are inclined to do that are already doing it. This is what FX and crypto are for. As strawman arguments go, it’s fairly poor.
The world changes, and you may be a Luddite who resists change, or you can see its advantages and take advantage of them.
