For as long as technology and communications have made it feasible, currencies and derivatives could be traded around the clock. Cryptocurrency was invented on and for the perpetual-motion internet. But stock markets held to traditional business hours.
Seemingly in a flash, major equity exchanges are gearing up for near-24-hour days. While the New York Stock Exchange Group and Nasdaq are anticipating extended hours by the second half of 2026, operational preparations are accompanied by questions and concerns around institutional participation, liquidity, settlement processes and counterparty risks.
The current movement started in the off-exchange world of alternative trading systems. The Blue Ocean ATS, launched in 2021 by Blue Ocean Technologies, catered to Asian traders between 8:00 pm and 4:00 am ET (New York time). Alliances with South Korean brokerages, and later the Tokyo Stock Exchange, accelerated the ATS’s growth, and firms such as Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab Corp. and Robinhood Markets partnered with Blue Ocean when launching or enhancing their 24-hour services.
Dmitri Galinov of 24X National Exchange
In November, 24 Exchange received Securities and Exchange Commission approval “to operate 24X National Exchange as the first national securities exchange in the U.S. that allows trading of U.S. securities 23 hours each workday.” On June 10, announcing a September 29, 2025 launch date, founder and CEO Dmitri Galinov called it “the culmination of years of innovation, regulatory engagement and commitment to global market access.”
Systems, staffing and compliance requirements are among the many moving parts that exchange operators and market participants are now confronting.
“While extended trading windows present major benefits – like the ability to react instantly to global news and earnings reports without being tied to East Coast market hours – they also bring significant risk,” said Lisa Balter Saacks, president of Trillium Surveyor, which has integrated its trade surveillance software with Blue Ocean ATS. “Lower liquidity, increased volatility and the mental strain of nonstop trading are all challenges that market participants must now navigate.”
“Liquidity, transparency and integrity remain the lifeblood of vibrant markets, and any structural change must uphold these principles,” said Nasdaq president Tal Cohen.
Serving the essential trade settlement function, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.’s National Securities Clearing Corp. in September 2024 enabled market centers and trading platforms to submit trades at 1:30 am ET instead of the previous 4:00 am. Phase 2 of its plan, targeted for the second quarter of 2026, will extend NSCC’s operations to 24/5, starting Sundays at 8:00 pm.
“As interest in near round-the-clock trading of U.S. equities grows, we are meeting this demand by extending our clearing hours to support our clients and further strengthen the safety and soundness of the markets,” stated Brian Steele, DTCC president of clearing and securities services.
Brian Steele of DTCC
Another key player, the Operating Committees of the Securities Information Processors (SIPs), said May 6 that it would propose to the SEC hours of operation “as close as technically feasible to 24 hours per day – from 8:00 pm Sundays to 8:00 pm (ET) Fridays, excluding holidays.” A “technical pause” of up to an hour would start at 8:00 pm Monday through Thursday for refreshing of systems, and the “new trade date” for recording purposes would commence at the end of the pause.
In a May 7 LinkedIn post, NYSE chief product officer Jon Herrick said the SIPs operating committees agreed to have the primary exchanges publish corporate actions – including dividends and stock splits – to the SIPs during the trading pause. Successful conversion of what has customarily been an after-hours task will ensure “this critical data is available to the broader industry in a normalized format at the start of each day,” he said.
Also extending hours will be the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Trade Reporting Facilities (TRFs).
The many approvals and votes required – including unanimous acceptance by operating committees of the registered exchanges – “sounds like herding cats, and it may take a long time to get things done,” said a source at a market maker engaged in a SIFMA working group who was not authorized to speak on the record. He said he was told “confidentially by members on those committees that progress is being made, and they are optimistic.”
As an article posted in the Nasdaq newsroom put it, “The success of 24-hour trading depends on coordinated efforts among regulatory bodies, market participants and clearing organizations to ensure all necessary safeguards are in place. Continuous adaptation and vigilance will be crucial to overcoming the challenges ahead, ultimately creating a more dynamic and globally integrated trading environment.”
The exchanges and other automated platforms typically have night shifts in place, Georgetown University associate professor James Angel pointed out. “It’s all the other market participants who have to connect to it,” he said – 3,000-plus U.S. brokers and their institutional clients. “Institutional trading desks generally staff for one shift, and those guys already work long hours.”
Angel viewed 8:00 p.m. as optimal for the trading pause, after Europeans are done trading and just as Asian markets are starting up.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission invited public comments on 24/7 trading, and the Futures Industry Association said it does not support extended trading and clearing in CFTC-regulated derivatives markets unless “significant operational, infrastructure, risk, compliance and regulatory issues” are resolved.
Caroline Pham of the CFTC
In a June 5 speech to the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and Trading Conference, acting and outgoing CFTC Chair Caroline Pham said many commenters called for 24/7 trading to be “evaluated holistically due to the effects not only on trading platforms and clearing houses, but also the changes that would be required of FCMs [futures commission merchants], market participants, asset managers, third-party service providers and others to account for changes in liquidity, price transparency, collateral access and default management during non-traditional business hours.
“These commenters stress that significantly increased costs would likely be borne by all market participants, not just those that choose to trade (or intermediate) 24/7.”
Pham also cited concerns “that low-volume periods during weekends will cause diminished liquidity, wider spreads, increased volatility and reduced price transparency, raising risk coverage questions . . . In sum, there are concerns that risk management will be significantly challenged when high volatility and low liquidity paired with limited collateral-asset mobility leads to increased defaults during a period when there may be limited ability of FCMs and CCPs [central counterparties] to close out positions or hedge associated risks.”
While Asian activity catalyzed the trading during U.S. off-hours, domestic American trading has increased, indicating institutional interest and liquidity. Nasdaq and NYSE have pre- and post-market windows (outside of the current ATS overnight hours). As of January, according to NYSE, more than 11% of U.S. equity trading occurred during the extended hours (over 1.7 billion shares traded daily); the figure was just over 5% in the first quarter of 2019.
Brian Hyndman, Blue Ocean Technologies
Blue Ocean’s volume between 8:00 pm and 4:00 am ET has quadrupled over the last year, to more than $1 billion, 80% of it from clients in Asia, said president and CEO Brian Hyndman. That’s still dwarfed by conventional exchange volumes.
At the Piper Sandler conference, Interactive Brokers chairman Thomas Peterffy said 24-hour trading “is obviously very important to many people in the Far, Middle and Near East,” more so than in the U.S. or Europe. As reported by Reuters, Peterffy said that in May, about 2.2% of Interactive Brokers’ volume was in overnight trading. He expects that to reach 25% to 30% in the next 20 years.
Longer trading hours allow investors to react to events and risk-manage in timelier fashion, but Prof. Angel speculates that “you could end up watering down liquidity during regular trading hours.”
William Capuzzi is optimistic about liquidity, as “a rising tide raises all ships.” A DTCC board member and CEO of Apex Fintech Solutions, whose sister company Bruce ATS opened its overnight trading platform in March, Capuzzi sees growing retail activity drawing more institutional traders, who may see trading opportunities stemming from the wider price swings in the less liquid overnight market.
On June 25, the ATS operator Bruce Markets LLC announced a strategic investment round, with backers including Apex Fintech Solutions, Fidelity Investments, Nasdaq Ventures, NH Investment and Securities, PEAK6 Investments, Robinhood, tastytrade and Webull.
In a pitch to the institutional market, agency brokerage CAPIS, LiquidityBook with its order management system, and Blue Ocean ATS announced a collaboration giving the buy side “the ability to react to breaking news in real time, rather than waiting for the market to open the next morning. They can manage exposures more precisely, placing limit orders to capture overnight price moves or adjust positions around key events. And they can tap into growing liquidity that, while still evolving, is no longer negligible – multiple market makers are already providing two-sided markets on Blue Ocean, and volumes continue to build.”
“We’ll see a big ramp-up over the next two years,” Blue Ocean’s Hyndman predicted, and “a tremendous amount of liquidity coming from the U.S. and Asia-Pacific.”