U.S. equity markets are moving toward near-continuous trading—Sunday evening through Friday evening, 23 hours a day. If you work with real-time market data, the operational implications arrive well before the first Night Session goes live.
For more than a century, U.S. equity markets have run on the same basic schedule: open at 9:30 a.m., close at 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Extended pre- and post-market sessions have stretched that window to roughly 16 hours on an active day. That model is now being replaced.
24/5 trading means near-continuous equity trading across a 23-hour window, five days a week. Markets would pause for just one hour each day (a technical maintenance window) and otherwise remain open from Sunday evening through Friday evening. The trading week expands from approximately 80 operational hours to around 115.
This isn’t a distant proposal. In fact, the SEC has already issued conditional approvals to two major exchanges, a third proposal is pending, and the shared infrastructure that underpins institutional trading is scheduled to catch up by late 2026.
Three elements are converging to make this happen now rather than later.
Global investor demand: International investors—particularly in Asia and Europe—hold substantial positions in U.S. equities but have always had to wait for New York to open. 24/5 trading lets them act on earnings, macro data, and geopolitical events during their own business hours, rather than sitting on unhedged overnight risk.
Retail expectations, reset by crypto: Crypto markets never close, and that has recalibrated what a generation of retail investors consider normal. The pressure to offer equivalent access for equities has been building on exchanges, brokerages, and regulators for years.
Technology readiness: Electronic trading infrastructure and cloud-based platforms have matured to the point where high-volume, low-latency trading across extended sessions is operationally feasible. The argument that the systems can’t support it no longer holds.
Individual investors can already access overnight U.S. equity trading through Alternative Trading Systems, most notably Blue Ocean ATS which operates from 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. ET. But ATS venues sit outside the consolidated tape, operate with significantly thinner liquidity, and lack the regulatory and data infrastructure of a national exchange.
What’s coming is different in kind, not just scale. The regulatory approvals are already accumulating, with the SEC conditionally approving:
24X National Exchange (approved late 2024) to operate on a 23/5 basis.
NYSE Arca (approved February 2025) to extend weekday trading to 22 hours.
Nasdaq has filed to trade 23 hours a day; approval is pending.
Full industry implementation depends on two shared infrastructure upgrades. The DTCC’s National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) must move to a 24x5 clearing schedule—targeted for June 28, 2026. And the Securities Information Processors (SIPs), which deliver the consolidated tape and official NBBO, must be upgraded to run overnight—targeted for December 2026. Until the SIPs are live, there is no consolidated tape after hours.
|
Session |
Hours (ET) |
Key Details |
|
Night Session |
9:00 p.m.–4:00 a.m. |
For global investors & 24/7 retail. Trades between 9 p.m.–midnight carry the next calendar day’s trade date. |
|
Day Session |
4:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. |
Pre-market, regular hours (9:30–4:00), and post-market combined into one continuous window. |
|
Technical Pause |
8:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. |
Trading closed for system maintenance, trade settlement, and corporate action processing all happen here. |
Two aspects of the change are especially relevant for data teams.
The 9:30 a.m. open and 4:00 p.m. close stay fixed; official closing prices, NAVs, and index rebalancing anchor to them.
Trades executed between 9:00 p.m. and midnight are tagged with the following calendar day’s trade date, which has implications for settlement and reporting logic.
As financial markets move toward 24-hour trading, advanced trading systems like BRUCE ATS and Blueocean ATS will become increasingly relevant. These alternative trading systems are designed to provide liquidity, transparency, and efficient execution outside traditional exchange hours. With around-the-clock trading, both institutional and retail investors will seek platforms that seamlessly enable order matching and price discovery at any time.
BRUCE ATS and Blueocean ATS can bridge gaps left by regular exchanges, handle after-hours demand, and ensure smoother global participation. As the shift to 24-hour markets accelerates, their robust technology and ability to support continuous, reliable trading will position them as crucial infrastructure for the evolving financial landscape.
The technical pause handles most corporate action processing: adjusted prices, splits, and symbol changes are pushed to the SIP before the night session opens. But edge cases remain. Material events during the night session trigger regulatory halts—exchanges pause the affected security until the primary listing market reopens (24X has confirmed this approach). And because dividends are tied to specific calendar dates, Nasdaq has indicated it may halt individual securities at the night session open until midnight to ensure correct entitlement. Final procedures are still being standardized.
FactSet is adapting its real-time data infrastructure for the full 23-hour session—normalized feeds with session-aware identifiers, overnight liquidity analytics calibrated for Night Session characteristics, and order management systems built to operate across the complete extended window. We’re engaged directly with exchanges, the DTCC, and SIP operators as these standards are being set, which means we’re readying ourselves for the future and continuous trading.
The firms that start adapting their pipelines today—trade date logic, maintenance window dependencies, and overnight risk models—will be in a stronger position when the night session goes live compared to those waiting for the final green light.
This blog post is for informational purposes only. The information contained in this blog post is not legal, tax, or investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.