MW Wall Street is headed toward 'always on' overnight U.S. trading spurred by Asian markets

By Vivien Lou Chen

Investors in the U.S. are itching to have the opportunity to trade at all hours, but U.S. exchanges and regulators are moving cautiously

Some retail traders in the U.S. are eager to have access to the stock market at all hours.

The U.S. is shifting toward a future of around-the-clock trading in stocks that could arrive as soon as next year.Between late 2024 and early this year, three of the biggest U.S. stock exchanges announced that they plan to launch overnight trading in the U.S., though it likely won't become a reality until at least 2026.

It's a change that will likely open the door to a larger number of individual traders taking advantage of off hours, but also has the potential to raise major operational problems if something goes wrong. That's been the experience in Asia, where investors have had access to an extended trading session that corresponds to overnight U.S. hours for the past few years.

The Asia experience is creating an incentive for the New York Stock Exchange $(ICE)$, Nasdaq Inc. $(NDAQ)$ and Cboe Global Markets Inc. $(CBOE)$ "to move faster," said Laksh Gangwani, the Singapore-based chief growth officer for ViewTrade. The NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe are "in a race against each other to launch their own overnight session," Gangwani said.

If the NYSE's extended overnight session gets off the ground first, "Cboe and Nasdaq also will have to launch their own overnight session" or risk losing a chunk of their market-data business, which is an important source of revenue for the exchanges, he noted.

Representatives for the NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe didn't provide comment on Gangwani's views about how the experience in Asian markets is impacting their plans to launch overnight trading.

Right now, the exchanges are open for trading on U.S. equities about 16 hours a day, from about 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. Though investors can make trades on select stocks and ETFs through sites like Robinhood (HOOD) and Charles Schwab $(SCHW)$ at all hours, having the major exchanges open overnight would mean that more people can immediately react to global events and other news as they are happening.

At a time when retail trading is booming thanks to the accessibility of mobile applications, investors in the U.S. are itching to have the opportunity to trade at all hours because it gives them greater flexibility to decide when to place orders, particularly outside of full-time work hours.

Across parts of Asia like Taiwan, Hong Kong and India, millions of investors can already trade more than 2,100 select securities with symbols listed on major U.S. stock exchanges - from big names like Tesla Inc. $(TSLA)$, Meta Platforms Inc. (META) and Apple Inc. $(AAPL)$, to exchange-traded funds linked to the S&P 500 SPY - during overnight extended trading hours. These extended hours between 8 p.m. and roughly 4 a.m. Eastern time - the period when the next day is just getting started in Asia through dinnertime - supplement existing premarket, regular trading and after-hours sessions to provide what is essentially 24-hour trading, five days a week.

The experience in Asia has shown that there's an insatiable global appetite by investors for a piece of the U.S. stock market - fueled by the widespread belief that American-listed names are among the most attractive investments in the world, even though international stocks are on pace to outperform the S&P 500 SPX this year - and that demand isn't being fully met by the current trading hours.

The second major lesson is that a robust trading system needs to be in place first to prevent the overnight session from buckling or collapsing under heavy demand from investors, which is what occurred in South Korea in 2024.

Gangwani's firm ViewTrade is one of a handful of firms globally that serve as a one-stop place for the behind-the-scenes technology which gives Asian investors access to U.S. markets. It works with more than 300 brokers, wealth managers, and other customers based in over 30 countries. ViewTrade's infrastructure provides access to the Blue Ocean ATS and Bruce ATS electronic trading systems. That gives him a unique perch from which to understand investor demand for more trading hours.

"I have good reason to believe that the future of every financial institution," including those on Wall Street, is to "always be on," he said. Nonetheless, he added, regulators need to balance the safety of the system with investors' appetite for extra hours.

Collaborative process

In October 2024, the NYSE became the first major U.S. stock exchange to announce a plan to extend U.S. equity trading to almost 24 hours a day, five days a week on the exchange's electronic Arca platform. The exchange received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission in February, and has set a target launch date in late 2026 that's contingent on getting necessary infrastructure in place and coordinating with the rest of the industry.

NYSE officials, such as Chief Product Officer Jon Herrick, have pointed to the collaborative process that's taking place to "responsibly" extend U.S. equity-trading hours, with a focus on industrywide coordination and robust protections.

But getting all of the behind-the-scenes work needed to meet the 2026 target will take time and effort, and may even stretch into 2027.

One piece of the process requires getting centralized securities information processors, or SIPs, to extend their own hours and processing capabilities, and to obtain regulatory approval. The SIPs are responsible for aggregating data across all exchanges and alternative trading systems, and creating a single consolidated feed - actions that are separate from the specific market data gathered and sold by individual exchanges. Before they can offer extended overnight trading of U.S. stocks, every exchange will have to wait for the SIPs to get approved for longer operating hours. In theory, that might help the NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe launch at or around the same time, but there is no guarantee that can happen simultaneously.

A second part of the process involves getting the National Securities Clearing Corp., which provides centralized clearing and settlement services for trades in U.S. financial markets, and its parent, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), to increase clearing hours, which is subject to regulatory approval. The plan is for this to take effect during the second quarter of next year.

In February and March, Cboe and Nasdaq respectively announced their own plans to launch a 24-hour trading day, five days a week, for U.S. equities, also subject to regulatory approval. Nasdaq plans to launch it in the second half of 2026.

Read: Nasdaq wants to launch 24-hour trading Monday through Friday. Here are the challenges it faces.

A spokesperson for Chicago-based Cboe, one of the largest U.S. equity-market operators, said a main priority is to ensure markets are liquid and transparent and also retain strong investor protections. The spokesperson added that the exchange supports "a thoughtful and measured approach" as the industry considers expanding trading hours.

"We continue to work with other industry participants to help ensure any transition is carried out in a prudent and responsible manner," the Cboe spokesperson said.

'Absolutely on board'

Amid the cautious approach from the industry and regulators, some U.S.-based retail investors, like Kunal Berry and Akshay Anandan, say they can't wait for extended overnight trading of U.S. stocks to get off the ground.

Like their counterparts in Asia, they are looking at the upside benefits of trading after regular U.S. hours - citing the need to be competitive against institutional investors, which have greater access to capital, research, market data and overnight trading hours.

Having access to the stock market all day and all night won't impede their lifestyle by tying them to their screens, Berry and Anandan say. Instead, the move toward around-the-clock trading would give them greater opportunity to pick and choose when they would want to be online.

Anandan, 23 years old and from Dallas, trades full time and owns his own trading firm. He has used Robinhood to buy and sell stocks like Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) through limit orders as late as 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. local time, and said an extended overnight session would "essentially be a good thing" that gives individual traders the "option to get into the action whenever there's news."

Berry, a 42-year-old consultant who owns his own business and lives in Irvine, Calif., said he is "absolutely on board" with the idea of an extended overnight trading session in the U.S., and sees it as one day becoming a societal "equalizer" that enables working-class Americans to get ahead.

"If I take a step back and take a 40,000-foot view on the entire thing, the goal for markets is to invite more retail investors in," he said. With some Americans struggling with multiple jobs just to get by, extended trading hours would allow them to be able to get in "to play," he said.

"Everybody creates their own schedules and works around that," Berry said. "Everyone will be able to adapt to this cycle."

Outage in South Korea

There are some markets in the U.S. where investors can already trade at all hours.

Cryptocurrency markets, for example, operate 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Some commodities and currencies trade nearly continuously, five days a week. And retail brokerages like Schwab, Robinhood and Interactive Brokers $(IBKR)$ offer practically 24-hour, 5-days-a-week trading on a number of U.S. stocks and ETFs.

But getting major American exchanges in a position to operate virtually around the clock when it comes to U.S. stocks is likely to require a delicate balancing act - one that reflects the need to protect investors, but also rewards innovation by meeting heavy demand from traders.

Nowhere was the need for such a balancing act more evident than in Asia last year.

MW Wall Street is headed toward 'always on' overnight U.S. trading spurred by Asian markets

By Vivien Lou Chen

Investors in the U.S. are itching to have the opportunity to trade at all hours, but U.S. exchanges and regulators are moving cautiously

Some retail traders in the U.S. are eager to have access to the stock market at all hours.

The U.S. is shifting toward a future of around-the-clock trading in stocks that could arrive as soon as next year.Between late 2024 and early this year, three of the biggest U.S. stock exchanges announced that they plan to launch overnight trading in the U.S., though it likely won't become a reality until at least 2026.

It's a change that will likely open the door to a larger number of individual traders taking advantage of off hours, but also has the potential to raise major operational problems if something goes wrong. That's been the experience in Asia, where investors have had access to an extended trading session that corresponds to overnight U.S. hours for the past few years.

The Asia experience is creating an incentive for the New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Nasdaq Inc. (NDAQ) and Cboe Global Markets Inc. (CBOE) "to move faster," said Laksh Gangwani, the Singapore-based chief growth officer for ViewTrade. The NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe are "in a race against each other to launch their own overnight session," Gangwani said.

If the NYSE's extended overnight session gets off the ground first, "Cboe and Nasdaq also will have to launch their own overnight session" or risk losing a chunk of their market-data business, which is an important source of revenue for the exchanges, he noted.

Representatives for the NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe didn't provide comment on Gangwani's views about how the experience in Asian markets is impacting their plans to launch overnight trading.

Right now, the exchanges are open for trading on U.S. equities about 16 hours a day, from about 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. Though investors can make trades on select stocks and ETFs through sites like Robinhood (HOOD) and Charles Schwab (SCHW) at all hours, having the major exchanges open overnight would mean that more people can immediately react to global events and other news as they are happening.

At a time when retail trading is booming thanks to the accessibility of mobile applications, investors in the U.S. are itching to have the opportunity to trade at all hours because it gives them greater flexibility to decide when to place orders, particularly outside of full-time work hours.

Across parts of Asia like Taiwan, Hong Kong and India, millions of investors can already trade more than 2,100 select securities with symbols listed on major U.S. stock exchanges - from big names like Tesla Inc. (TSLA), Meta Platforms Inc. (META) and Apple Inc. (AAPL), to exchange-traded funds linked to the S&P 500 SPY - during overnight extended trading hours. These extended hours between 8 p.m. and roughly 4 a.m. Eastern time - the period when the next day is just getting started in Asia through dinnertime - supplement existing premarket, regular trading and after-hours sessions to provide what is essentially 24-hour trading, five days a week.

The experience in Asia has shown that there's an insatiable global appetite by investors for a piece of the U.S. stock market - fueled by the widespread belief that American-listed names are among the most attractive investments in the world, even though international stocks are on pace to outperform the S&P 500 SPX this year - and that demand isn't being fully met by the current trading hours.

The second major lesson is that a robust trading system needs to be in place first to prevent the overnight session from buckling or collapsing under heavy demand from investors, which is what occurred in South Korea in 2024.

Gangwani's firm ViewTrade is one of a handful of firms globally that serve as a one-stop place for the behind-the-scenes technology which gives Asian investors access to U.S. markets. It works with more than 300 brokers, wealth managers, and other customers based in over 30 countries. ViewTrade's infrastructure provides access to the Blue Ocean ATS and Bruce ATS electronic trading systems. That gives him a unique perch from which to understand investor demand for more trading hours.

"I have good reason to believe that the future of every financial institution," including those on Wall Street, is to "always be on," he said. Nonetheless, he added, regulators need to balance the safety of the system with investors' appetite for extra hours.

Collaborative process

In October 2024, the NYSE became the first major U.S. stock exchange to announce a plan to extend U.S. equity trading to almost 24 hours a day, five days a week on the exchange's electronic Arca platform. The exchange received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission in February, and has set a target launch date in late 2026 that's contingent on getting necessary infrastructure in place and coordinating with the rest of the industry.

NYSE officials, such as Chief Product Officer Jon Herrick, have pointed to the collaborative process that's taking place to "responsibly" extend U.S. equity-trading hours, with a focus on industrywide coordination and robust protections.

But getting all of the behind-the-scenes work needed to meet the 2026 target will take time and effort, and may even stretch into 2027.

One piece of the process requires getting centralized securities information processors, or SIPs, to extend their own hours and processing capabilities, and to obtain regulatory approval. The SIPs are responsible for aggregating data across all exchanges and alternative trading systems, and creating a single consolidated feed - actions that are separate from the specific market data gathered and sold by individual exchanges. Before they can offer extended overnight trading of U.S. stocks, every exchange will have to wait for the SIPs to get approved for longer operating hours. In theory, that might help the NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe launch at or around the same time, but there is no guarantee that can happen simultaneously.

A second part of the process involves getting the National Securities Clearing Corp., which provides centralized clearing and settlement services for trades in U.S. financial markets, and its parent, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), to increase clearing hours, which is subject to regulatory approval. The plan is for this to take effect during the second quarter of next year.

In February and March, Cboe and Nasdaq respectively announced their own plans to launch a 24-hour trading day, five days a week, for U.S. equities, also subject to regulatory approval. Nasdaq plans to launch it in the second half of 2026.

Read: Nasdaq wants to launch 24-hour trading Monday through Friday. Here are the challenges it faces.

A spokesperson for Chicago-based Cboe, one of the largest U.S. equity-market operators, said a main priority is to ensure markets are liquid and transparent and also retain strong investor protections. The spokesperson added that the exchange supports "a thoughtful and measured approach" as the industry considers expanding trading hours.

"We continue to work with other industry participants to help ensure any transition is carried out in a prudent and responsible manner," the Cboe spokesperson said.

'Absolutely on board'

Amid the cautious approach from the industry and regulators, some U.S.-based retail investors, like Kunal Berry and Akshay Anandan, say they can't wait for extended overnight trading of U.S. stocks to get off the ground.

Like their counterparts in Asia, they are looking at the upside benefits of trading after regular U.S. hours - citing the need to be competitive against institutional investors, which have greater access to capital, research, market data and overnight trading hours.

Having access to the stock market all day and all night won't impede their lifestyle by tying them to their screens, Berry and Anandan say. Instead, the move toward around-the-clock trading would give them greater opportunity to pick and choose when they would want to be online.

Anandan, 23 years old and from Dallas, trades full time and owns his own trading firm. He has used Robinhood to buy and sell stocks like Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) through limit orders as late as 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. local time, and said an extended overnight session would "essentially be a good thing" that gives individual traders the "option to get into the action whenever there's news."

Berry, a 42-year-old consultant who owns his own business and lives in Irvine, Calif., said he is "absolutely on board" with the idea of an extended overnight trading session in the U.S., and sees it as one day becoming a societal "equalizer" that enables working-class Americans to get ahead.

"If I take a step back and take a 40,000-foot view on the entire thing, the goal for markets is to invite more retail investors in," he said. With some Americans struggling with multiple jobs just to get by, extended trading hours would allow them to be able to get in "to play," he said.

"Everybody creates their own schedules and works around that," Berry said. "Everyone will be able to adapt to this cycle."

Outage in South Korea

There are some markets in the U.S. where investors can already trade at all hours.

Cryptocurrency markets, for example, operate 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Some commodities and currencies trade nearly continuously, five days a week. And retail brokerages like Schwab, Robinhood and Interactive Brokers (IBKR) offer practically 24-hour, 5-days-a-week trading on a number of U.S. stocks and ETFs.

But getting major American exchanges in a position to operate virtually around the clock when it comes to U.S. stocks is likely to require a delicate balancing act - one that reflects the need to protect investors, but also rewards innovation by meeting heavy demand from traders.

Nowhere was the need for such a balancing act more evident than in Asia last year.

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

November 13, 2025 10:35 ET (15:35 GMT)

MW Wall Street is headed toward 'always on' -2-

On Aug. 5, 2024, Blue Ocean ATS, an alternative trading system known as BOATS, experienced a temporary outage at around 1:45 a.m. Eastern time caused by high trading volumes during a global market selloff. The selloff had been triggered by a weak U.S. jobs report that fanned recession worries, as well as by the sudden unwinding of the Japanese yen (USDJPY) carry trade.

The outage led to the cancellation of transactions in South Korea totaling 630 million won (USDKRW) (about $435 million at the time) and affected about 90,000 customer accounts. About 70% of the overnight market crumbled following Blue Ocean's system issue and the subsequent decision to halt trading on BOATS, according to Jason Wallach, chief executive of the Chicago-based broker-dealer which operates rival Bruce ATS. South Korea's regulator and broker-dealers agreed to halt trading on BOATS during local daytime hours, which correspond with overnight hours in New York.

"Certainly, the primary lesson learned was about the demand," Wallach said in an interview. "Some market participants may have looked at overnight trading as a novelty. The reality is that we, as an industry, are still in the early innings of a 24-hour trading day, but it is here to stay, both domestically and internationally."

South Korean brokerages resumed daytime trading of U.S. stocks this month. But they are required to only access the U.S. overnight trading session via American brokers that have access to at least two alternative trading systems. Bruce ATS helps brokers satisfy the requirement from the South Korean regulator.

"The need to get infrastructure right is extremely important," Wallach said - adding that a robust and trustworthy trading system must be in place, given the likelihood of increased demand and the possibility that U.S. regulators won't be up overnight to step in if something goes wrong.

More than anything, Wallach said, "it's about bringing established technology already tested and proven for core-session trading to the overnight market to provide the guardrails, stability and transparency that brokers and investors expect - creating a safe, compliant venue for serious trading after the bell."

The U.S. currently has three key alternative trading systems that can handle overnight sessions for U.S. stocks in the future: BOATS, Bruce ATS, and Moon ATS, the latter of which is owned by OTC Markets Group (OTCM). Major broker-dealers work with these alternative trading systems to provide their clients with extended-hours trading.

"We firmly believe that we are at a point now where, with three ATS, we have an ecosystem that can support the demand for resiliency expected of U.S. markets," Wallach said.

While there's been a good deal of progress made, the NYSE, Nasdaq and Cboe have released "very little new information on timing," noted Wallach, adding that he has not heard of anything final. In addition, although the DTCC appears to be on track to increase its clearing hours to support extended overnight trading of U.S. stocks by June of next year, "SIPs need to be operating" during those extra hours, he said.

'U.S. exceptionalism'

Back in Asia, ViewTrade's Gangwani foresees double-digit growth over a period of many years, based on the notional value of U.S. stocks being traded by the whole industry during the entire 24/5 session from Asia. This notional value now stands somewhere between $900 million to $2 billion each night, up from roughly $400 million to $600 million a night a few years ago.

In his view, "overnight markets are slated to grow exponentially." Once more exchanges get involved, institutions that were on the sidelines will come in, bring more liquidity and make markets more efficient. And this should encourage even more participation - creating a virtuous circle of innovation, demand and monetization known as the "flywheel effect."

There is an "aspiration and demand to be a part of the U.S. growth story and U.S. exceptionalism," Gangwani said, referring to the term used to describe America's unique and special role in the world relative to other nations. Extended overnight trading "means more people will be able to participate in this growth story," which also adds more liquidity to the overnight market.

"Now, they can trade U.S. stock markets when they want to trade," he said, "rather than being awake in the middle of the night."

Gordon Gottsegen contributed.

-Vivien Lou Chen

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 13, 2025 10:35 ET (15:35 GMT)

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