Regular session: 9:30 to 16:00 Eastern, every weekday
The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq run a regular session from 09:30 to 16:00 US Eastern Time, Monday to Friday. Everything else
pre-market from 04:00 and after-hours until 20:00 is an extended session with thinner liquidity and wider spreads.
For a non-US investor the practical problem is timezone, not rules. The US session opens at 21:30 or 22:30 Beijing time in winter and summer respectively, which is why many overseas investors feel they must trade in the middle of the night.
US market open in your local time
The US observes daylight saving between March and November, so your local opening time shifts by an hour twice a year. Below are the regular session times for common investor locations.
Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore: 21:30 to 04:00 (US daylight saving) and 22:30 to 05:00 (US standard time). Tokyo, Seoul: 22:30 to 05:00 in summer, 23:30 to 06:00 in winter.
London: 14:30 to 21:00 in summer, 15:30 to 22:00 in winter. Sao Paulo: 10:30 to 17:00 in summer, 11:30 to 18:00 in winter.
The nine US market holidays in 2026
US exchanges close fully on New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Washington's Birthday, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. When a holiday falls on a weekend, the closure shifts to the nearest weekday.
On several other days typically the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve
the session closes early at 13:00 Eastern. Half days matter for anyone holding overnight exposure, because liquidity disappears and spreads widen sharply into the close.
Pre-market and after-hours: opportunity and trap
Extended sessions exist so that companies can release results outside the regular session and investors can react immediately. Most earnings are released at 16:05 Eastern or before 08:00 Eastern, and that is where the biggest single-day gaps come from.
The trap is execution. Volume outside regular hours can be a small fraction of normal, spreads widen, and stop-loss orders often will not trigger the way you expect.
If you must act on a headline, prefer limit orders and assume the first price you see is not the price you will get.
Why tokenized stocks trade around the clock
Traditional brokers simply close. Tokenized stock products on crypto platforms quote continuously because the underlying reference price is tracked by a perpetual-style contract with funding payments, not by an order book matched to the exchange.
That is convenient for anyone in Asia or Africa, but it means overnight moves are priced in immediately. Practical implication: your exposure never pauses.
Check your positions before sleeping, use alerts rather than screen-watching, and review our fee and funding cost breakdown in theplatform comparisonbefore holding multi-week positions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I place orders when the US market is closed
With a traditional broker, orders queue until the next open. With tokenized products you can usually trade immediately, priced off the tracking reference rather than the exchange book.
Why did my stop not trigger overnight
Most classic stop orders only execute during the regular session, and extended-session liquidity is too thin to guarantee fills even when enabled.
Are prices worse outside regular hours
Yes, on average. Spreads widen when market makers step back, which is why limit orders matter more than market orders.
