The Nasdaq is Now Trading for 23 Hours a Day. Whose Business Is It Taking?
NASDAQ plans to launch 23-hour, five-day-a-week stock trading starting December 6, 2026, pending final infrastructure readiness. The new overnight session, from 9 PM to 4 AM ET, directly targets Asian investors by aligning with their daytime hours. The move is fundamentally an order flow battle. Nasdaq aims to recapture trades from after-hours platforms, broker internal systems, and rival exchanges. Data shows overnight trading is concentrated in a few broad market ETFs (like SPY, QQQ) and mega-cap stocks (like Tesla, Nvidia), focused on risk management rather than stock-picking. While offering faster price discovery, extended hours raise systemic costs, may widen bid-ask spreads due to lower liquidity, and shift pricing power. The trend highlights the growing centrality of US markets for global asset pricing, even for non-US assets via ETFs. For markets like Hong Kong, the priority is enhancing asset quality and connectivity rather than merely extending hours. Ultimately, extended trading is an amplifier; what matters is which market defines the next global price.
marsbit08/16 11:16
