NYSE Asks Market Participants About 24/7 Trading for Stocks

• The New York Stock Exchange is seeking opinions from market participants about shifting the U.S. stock market to a 24/7 operating schedule.
• Round-the-clock trading became popular during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the trading of cryptocurrencies picked up and retail investor interest blew up.
• A Steve Cohen-backed trading platform, 24 Exchange, is currently awaiting a decision from the SEC on whether it can launch the first 24/7 exchange.

The New York Stock Exchange has asked market participants about how they'd feel if the market operated 24 hours a day, the same schedule that cryptocurrencies use, the Financial Times reported.

NYSE, whose roots stretch back to the 18th century, famously signals the start and end of daily trading with bell-ringing ceremonies in the morning and afternoon – though, because of electronic trading, buying and selling has for decades actually taken place before the first bell at 9:30 a.m. and after the second one at 4 p.m. New York time.

But a startup, 24 Exchange, which is backed by billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, wants to take that a step further as the first stock exchange to allow 24/7 trading. Several retail brokers like Robinhood already let clients trade day and night.

And cryptocurrencies never stop trading. “Anyone who wants to trade crypto 24/7 would also like to trade Apple or Microsoft 24/7,” 24 Exchange’s founder and CEO, Dmitri Galin, told Bloomberg in 2023.

Round-the-clock trading became a popular idea after interest in crypto blew up and retail trading grew tremendously during the Covid-19 pandemic. Increased investor interest from Asia and Europe in U.S. financial assets has also picked up in recent years.

“The world changed with the pandemic and with crypto trading 24/7. Everybody has the infrastructure and the support to handle trading overnight now,” Brian Hyndman, chief executive of Blue Ocean, an overnight-trading provider, told the Financial Times in December.

Questions in NYSE’s survey included whether participants would prefer overnight trading to take place seven days a week, how investors should be protected from price fluctuations as well as opinions on the staffing of overnight sessions, according to the FT.

The SEC has several months to make a decision on 24 Exchange’s application.