What is "after-hours trading"?
- Thread starter Overnight
- Start date
Robert Morse
Sponsor
Stocks trade on ARCA and NASDAQ from 4am to 8pm ET.
Does that mean retail can trade them through one of those brokers you see on TV like TD Ameritrade or E-Trade, during those hours?
Robert Morse
Sponsor
You would have to ask them. We offer that range on Lightspeed Trader, Sterling Trader Pro and Realtick.
Brings up another question...So from 8PM to 4AM the whole stock market is totally closed. I get that. During that window, are orders allowed to be entered/cancelled?
Robert Morse
Sponsor
Depends on your broker. With Lightspeed, our servers are down outside trading hours. Many online brokers will hold orders on their server until the exchanges and ECNs open their pipes. We do not as we do not want to "hold" orders.
Interesting. I always wondered why there have been spikes in activity in the future indices at that 4 AM ET area. I reckon'd it had to do with London opening, but now I see it is really the "pre-market" of the US exchanges, processing orders from those brokers that allow trading at 4AM. Because man, it can really move the futures something fierce in that first hour.
Robert Morse
Sponsor
I would say early morning index trading is from Asia and then Europe vs heavy stock activity pre-market.
London opens at 8am local time which is 3am ET, not 4am ET. You tend to see a markedly increase in price volatility of US index futures at the London open. I think that's due to arbitrage between US index futures and a) US stocks that are traded here in London and b) other non US index futures.