NASDAQ plans to add a new period of night trading in American-East time and to extend US stock trading days to 23 hours a day and 5 days a week. The adjustment was approved by the United States SEC and the exchange is expected to be launched on 6 December, provided that the securities information processing system is ready.

It's December.

Under the current arrangements, the NASDAQ trading period is from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. American Eastern Time, covering pre-, regular and post-discretion transactions. On this basis, the new scheme will add an additional night pallet from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. the next day, with an hour shut-down window between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. to be maintained for system maintenance, testing, corporate behaviour processing and transaction settlement.

The night drive will start on Sunday night at 9 p.m. and will continue until Friday night at 8 p.m. and will remain closed on weekends. According to NASDAQ, all NMS shares can be traded on night pallets, but the rules of dealing will be stricter than the normal time period.

Open limit list only

According to the programme, the night drive will only accept the price limit list and the market price list, as well as part of the plating, opening and closing orders, will remain closed. Participants also need to use special night disk access ports.

This means that NASDAQ, while extending the time of the transaction, has not designed the night drive to be the same as the day in a fluid environment. Exchanges and regulators have mentioned that extended time periods are often associated with lower liquidity and greater volatility.

Directly to all-weather transactions in the encrypted market

NASDAQ has made it clear in its regulatory document that this is an attempt to obtain a flow of orders, including for investors who are accustomed to trading around the clock on encrypted assets, tokenized assets and tokenized securities platforms. It was also mentioned that this adjustment could also prepare the exchange for future participation in the digital asset market.

Over the past few years, 24/7 trading patterns of encrypted assets such as Bitcoin, Solana and others have changed investors ' expectations of opening up to markets. In the event of geo-conflict, macro-data or company breaking news, investors do not have to wait for the exchange to open the next day to react, which has been a clear advantage of the encrypted market vis-à-vis traditional securities markets.

With the addition of a night drive in NASDAQ, the gap will be narrowed on working days. If the listed company made significant progress late in the night in American Eastern time, investors would be able to trade the relevant stock directly during the nighttime, without having to wait until the next day when the regular transaction began.

However, there is still a clear difference between the United States share and the encryption market. NASDAQ is still closed on weekends, while the encryption market remains open for seven days, 24 hours in a row. For the traditional exchange, the focus of follow-up observations remains on whether a longer period of open time will provide sufficient mobility.

Rising demand for overseas funds

President Tal Cohen of NASDAQ mentioned earlier that by June 2024, United States equities held by overseas investors had risen to $17 trillion, an increase of 97 per cent over 2019. Against the backdrop of rising demand for transactions across the time zone, more investors have begun to use alternative trading systems and digital asset platforms in United States stock market breaks.

The extension of the NASDAQ transaction period shows that traditional financial institutions are trying to keep more transactions in regulated stock markets. While this is not yet a 24/7 deal, it is a step towards near-all-weather trading in the United States stock market.