The Nasdaq has announced plans to facilitate US stock trading for nearly 23 hours every day, beginning Sunday, December 6.
This initiative, which remains pending approval from the SEC, would extend the Nasdaq’s operational window from Sunday evening through Friday evening with minimal interruption.
For investors based in Europe, the new 9pm to 4am ET window translates to 3am to 10am CET. This allows European market participants to trade Nasdaq-listed equities for almost an entire session before the London markets open.
Currently, the Nasdaq operates extended hours session from 4pm to 8pm ET, flanking the core 9:30am to 4pm trading day. However, access to these early and late windows has largely been restricted to institutional investors with direct market connections
Nasdaq president Tal Cohen has framed the expansion as a way to “broaden investor access and expand wealth-building opportunities” for everyone else.
This strategy is supported by data showing that foreign holdings of US equities reached $17 trillion (€14.6tn) by mid-2024, a 97% increase since 2019. The Nasdaq aims to capture this volume directly rather than losing it to platforms that already offer around-the-clock access.
A market that increasingly never sleeps
Traditional exchanges have faced growing pressure to increase accessibility and extend their operating hours.
Geopolitical events during the Trump administration frequently occurred while Wall Street was closed. Most notably, when US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites were announced on a Saturday morning in February, traders were forced to use crypto exchanges and decentralized platforms to price oil, gold, and silver in real time.
These venues—along with emerging tools like tokenized real-world assets, which represent digital ownership of stocks, bonds, or commodities, and perpetual futures contracts that allow bets on asset prices without expiration dates—have demonstrated that the demand for 24-hour trading does not wait for traditional exchanges to open.
The Nasdaq is not acting in isolation.
The rival NYSE has already secured SEC approval for a 22-hour trading day running from 1:30am to 11:30pm ET, while Cboe, the largest US options exchange, has signaled similar intentions.
The Nasdaq first indicated its goal of moving toward continuous trading in March, with this week’s announcement providing the specific details.
The new evening session serves as the first concrete building block, opening the market for nearly 23 hours during a five-day trading week, as the exchange ultimately wants to offer 24/7 trading.
