The plan would reshape U.S. market hours to include overnight trading, driven by rising international participation.
- Trading hours would expand to 23 hours a day, five days a week, with a new overnight session.
- Other exchanges and brokerages are also pushing toward extended-hours stock trading.
- Nasdaq warns liquidity, volatility, and infrastructure upgrades remain key hurdles.
Nasdaq is reportedly set to take its first formal regulatory step toward near 24-hour U.S. stock trading, filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday as surging global demand pushes markets closer to nonstop trading five days a week.
Nasdaq Targets 2026 Rollout
The exchange operator has said it is targeting a launch in the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approval and coordination across market infrastructure, according to a Reuters report.
Demand for trading beyond regular U.S. market hours has climbed alongside a sharp rise in international participation. American stocks dominate global markets by value, and overseas investors now hold trillions of dollars in U.S. equities, reflecting a growing desire to trade across time zones rather than around long-standing Wall Street schedules.
What 23-Hour Trading Would Look Like
Under Nasdaq’s plan, daily trading would expand from 16 hours to 23 hours, Monday through Friday, shifting from three sessions to two.
The day session would run from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. eastern time and continue to include pre-market, regular, and post-market trading, with the opening bell at 9:30 a.m. and the closing bell at 4 p.m. A one-hour pause would follow for system maintenance and trade clearing.
A night session would then operate from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. the next day. Trades executed between 9 p.m. and midnight would be recorded as trades for the following trading day. The trading week would begin Sunday at 9 p.m. and conclude Friday at 8 p.m.
Exchanges Race Toward 24/5 Trading
Nasdaq’s move comes as rival venues also push toward extended hours. Cboe Global Markets has announced plans for 24-hour, five-day-a-week equities trading, pending approval. The New York Stock Exchange has already received initial SEC approval to offer 22-hour weekday trading, subject to updates to market data feeds, Bloomberg reported.
Outside the exchanges, brokerages such as Robinhood Markets and Interactive Brokers already allow customers to trade U.S. stocks around the clock via alternative trading systems like Blue Ocean.
Risks Still In Focus
Despite rising overnight activity, Nasdaq has cautioned that liquidity remains significantly lower outside regular market hours. Nasdaq President Tal Cohen has warned that expanded trading could bring higher volatility and increased transaction costs, even as investor interest grows, according to the Bloomberg report.
The shift to near-continuous trading depends on upgrades to market infrastructure, including the securities information processor that publishes official stock prices. Clearing systems are also critical, with the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation expected to introduce nonstop stock clearing by the end of 2026.
Nasdaq has said its systems are designed to handle sharp increases in activity during periods of market stress, which it expects to become more common as trading hours expand.
How Did Stocktwits Users React?
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment was ‘bullish’ for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) amid ‘normal’ message volume and also ‘bullish’ for the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) with ‘high’ message volume, while sentiment for the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) was ‘bearish’ amid ‘normal’ message volume.
So far this year, SPY is up 17%, QQQ has risen 20%, and DIA has climbed 16%.
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