Before the year’s out Nasdaq plans to start trading 23 hours a day, five days a week, as does the New York Stock Exchange’s Arca venue, while in London, the main bourse has kick-started work on a similar project.
These are meaningful developments for retail and institutional investors alike, as many global exchanges evolve in an attempt to capture increased flows and tap into demand for round-the-clock trading. And while these strategic moves are being led by highly liquid markets overseas, they will also have knock-on effects for exchanges in the Asia Pacific, including the ASX.
It’s early days, but these shifts do have the potential to alter trading behaviour.
The move to round-the-clock trading was largely fanned by armies of retail investors in the US, and more recently in South Korea. Extended trading hours allow retail investors to access equity markets after work in the US, for example, and may attract untapped demand for trading. It would also allow investors to react to geopolitical and other events in real time.
The shift has been debated for some time. Investment behemoth BlackRock conducted a deep dive into 24-hour trading in an article last year, assessing how moves to make trading more mainstream and accessible could work in practice.
Source: https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/nasdaq-will-soon-trade-23-hours-a-day-australia-is-watching-20260807-p60mc9