The Nasdaq aims to expand trading to 23 hours a day, five days a week, responding to rising global demand for U.S. equities, particularly from overseas investors.
| Photo Credit:
REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Nasdaq, one of the
world’s largest exchanges that is home to tech companies Nvidia,
Apple and Amazon, is planning to submit paperwork with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to roll out
round-the-clock trading of stocks, as it looks to capitalize on
a global demand for U.S. equities.
Investor demand for nonstop trading in U.S. stocks has surged in
recent years, prompting regulators to introduce new rules and
green-light proposals from major exchanges to enable trading
beyond normal market hours. The U.S. stock market represents
almost two-thirds of the market value of listed companies
globally, while total foreign holdings of U.S. equities reached
$17 trillion last year, according to data compiled by Nasdaq.
Nasdaq’s filing with the SEC will mark its first formal step
towards rolling out round-the-clock trading, five days a week.
In March, Nasdaq President Tal Cohen said the exchange operator
had started discussions with regulators and expected to launch
nonstop five-day-a-week trading in the second half of 2026. The
New York Stock Exchange and Cboe Global Markets also recently
announced plans to move to round-the-clock trading for stocks.
“There’s been this trend towards globalization for some time
and we’ve seen the U.S. markets themselves become much more
global,” Chuck Mack, senior vice president of North American
markets at Nasdaq, told Reuters.
TWO DAILY TRADING SESSIONS
Nasdaq plans to expand trading hours of stocks and
exchange-traded products from 16 hours to 23 hours, five days a
week. Currently, Nasdaq operates three daily sessions during
weekdays: the pre-market session from 4 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Eastern U.S. time, the regular market session from 9:30 a.m. to
4 p.m., and the post-market session from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. When
Nasdaq moves to 23/5, it plans to operate two trading sessions,
with the day session starting at 4 a.m. and ending at 8 p.m.,
followed by a one-hour break for maintenance, testing, and
clearing of trades. The night session will kick off at 9 p.m.
and end at 4 a.m. the following calendar day.
The day session will continue to include pre-market,
regular, and post-market trading hours, and will feature the
opening bell at 9:30 a.m. and the closing bell at 4 p.m. In the
night session, trades executed between 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. will
be considered trades for the following day.
Under the new plan, the trading week will start on Sunday at
9 p.m. and end on Friday at 8 p.m. after the day session.
The successful rollout of round-the-clock trading hinges on
upgrades to the securities information processor that displays
the most accurate stock quotes on U.S. exchanges. The central
clearing hub, the U.S. Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., is
scheduled to roll out nonstop clearing for stocks by the end of
2026.
Advocates of the broader move to round-the-clock trading have
argued it will allow investors, especially those based outside
the U.S., to react more quickly to developments that happen
outside regular market hours. Major Wall Street banks, however,
are cautious about the push toward nonstop trading, citing
concerns around lower liquidity, heightened volatility, and
uncertainty over returns on investment.
‘OWN TERMS, OWN TIME ZONES’
While volumes during extended hours are usually much lower
than during regular hours, demand has been booming for trading
during overnight U.S. hours, Mack said. Investors who want to
trade 24/7 currently rely on off-exchange trading venues, or
alternative trading systems, such as Blue Ocean, Bruce ATS, and
OTC Moon.
“We see these things manifest themselves in the U.S.
equities market, through increasing demand for companies
specifically listed on Nasdaq from geographies outside of the
U.S., much more now than in the past,” Mack said. “If you think
of those investors around the world, they want to access this
huge market on their own terms and they want to do it in their
own time zones.”
Trading hours on large stock exchanges such as the NYSE date
back more than a century, to when trades were placed in person
on trading floors by brokers who took orders on paper. While
most stock trading is now done electronically, trading hours on
most U.S. exchanges have largely remained the same over the
decades.
Earlier this year, Nasdaq filed with U.S. regulators to
introduce trading of tokenized stocks, as it sought to double
down on a boom in tokenization amid an easing of crypto
regulations under the Trump administration.
“When there’s market stress and volatility, the traffic in
the market and the activity levels pick up significantly. We
have built systems that are extremely resilient, have a lot of
throughput, and have the ability to handle those types of
situations,” Mack said.
Published on December 16, 2025