NYSE plans to extend daily trading to 22 hours on its Arca exchange

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The New York Stock Exchange announced plans to extend trading hours for equities on its Arca venue to 22 hours on weekdays, in an effort to meet global demand for buying and selling US-listed assets around the clock.

NYSE, which is part of Intercontinental Exchange, said the extended trading hours for its all-electronic Arca exchange would cover 1:30am to 11:30pm Eastern time, excluding holidays.

The proposed expansion, which targets a 2025 launch and is subject to approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission, follows the increased popularity in recent years of round-the-clock retail trading offered via brokerage platforms such as Robinhood and Interactive Brokers.

“As the steward of the US capital markets, the NYSE is pleased to lead the way in enabling exchange-based trading for our US-listed companies and funds to investors in time zones across the globe,” Kevin Tyrrell, head of markets at the NYSE, said in a statement on Friday.

NYSE plans to seek regulatory approval for the extended trading hours from the SEC as well as “US securities information processors”, such as the Consolidated Tape Association. The “tape” represents the official record of trading prices on exchanges, so the inclusion of night-time activity would be more likely to set the early tone for regular trading hours.

NYSE Arca is best known as a venue for exchange traded funds and also hosts certain stocks and closed-end funds. Year-to-date, the Arca exchange has traded about $27.7bn a day in ETFs and about $21.8bn per day in corporate stocks, according to NYSE.

It already has a broader operating window than the NYSE itself, with sessions running from 4am to 8pm Eastern time. Regular NYSE trading hours are 9.30am to 4pm Eastern time.

Retail trading has boomed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the increased salience of cryptocurrencies. Assets such as US Treasuries, currencies and stock index futures can already be traded outside of normal exchange hours. That trend has put pressure on NYSE to consider widening its trading hours, and earlier this year prompted the group to poll market participants on the merits of trading stocks around the clock.

Some retail brokers already offer 24/7 trading where trades overnight are matched through a “dark pool” venue that matches night-time trades in the US with daytime buying and selling in Asia.