Quote from loufah:
Since most news affecting US markets occurs either the night before (in Asia) or starting at 3AM (when Europe opens), I see nothing wrong, other than lack of sleep for people on the left coast, for starting US trading at 7:30 or 8AM. Move earnings releases and economic reports appropriately. And since 6.5 hours is more than enough to trade, they should close at 2 or 2:30PM. That way we get to see *some* daylight.

Quote from btud:
I think it is the most natural, the most normal thing that can happen to the markets. In fact there are no economical reasons why markets are not entirely electronic and 24 h already. The reasons are probably the traditionalism and inertia of a lot of people who were born, raised and have traded in the old world.
What is in fact the role of an exchange? It's only purpose is to provide a means for market participants to trade. Does this imply there should be some geographical, or time restrictions? Of course not. The mechanism, the exchange, brokerage, ECN, or whatever you may call it must exist everywhere and all the time. Now should the market makers have a preference for a certain period of time, or for some particular assets (Americans for US Stocks for example between 1400 - 2100 GMT) it's only their subjective choice. Nobody forces one to trade 24h. If you're profitable you may trade as less as 1 min a day. There will be periods of less liquidity and periods of greater liquidity. The market will calibrate itself, no need to impose artificial restrictions. FOREX is a very good example. The effect of less liquidity will be greater costs of transactions during some parts of the day. So in the end, the normal schedules of people will be in most part kept unchanged. That is no need to worry for your spare time. The 24h market won't eat it up![]()