Nasdaq is pushing ahead with a move that hits the center of the U.S. stock market.
The exchange that lists Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, and Amazon is sending its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to start nonstop stock trading for five days each week.
It wants its stocks open almost around the clock because demand for U.S. equities has exploded worldwide, and global investors are done waiting for Wall Street hours to line up with their time zones.
The exchange said foreign investors held $17 trillion worth of U.S. stocks last year. Nasdaq’s data shows America’s market now accounts for almost two-thirds of the total value of listed companies across the world.
Regulators have already approved new rules to open the door for longer trading windows, and major exchanges have been lining up with their own plans.
Nasdaq moves forward with nonstop trading
Nasdaq President Tal Cohen said discussions with U.S. regulators began months ago, and he expects the 23/5 system to go live in the second half of 2026.
The filing hitting the SEC this week is the exchange’s first formal step. The New York Stock Exchange and Cboe Global Markets have also rolled out separate plans to extend their hours.
Nasdaq executive Chuck Mack told Reuters that the U.S. market has turned into a global arena. He said, “There’s been this trend towards globalization for some time and we’ve seen the U.S. markets themselves become much more global.”
He also said they now see “increasing demand for companies specifically listed on Nasdaq from geographies outside of the U.S. , much more now than in the past.”
Right now, Nasdaq runs three weekday sessions: pre-market from 4 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. , the regular session from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. , and post-market from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. The new system replaces that structure with two daily sessions.
The day session will run from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. Then a one-hour break will be used for maintenance, testing, and clearing trades.
After that, the night session starts at 9 p.m. and runs to 4 a.m. Trades placed between 9 p.m. and midnight will count as trades for the next calendar day.
Under the new 23/5 plan, the trading week opens Sunday at 9 p.m. and closes Friday at 8 p.m. All of this depends on technology upgrades to the securities information processor, which must show accurate quotes nonstop.
The U.S. Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. also needs to finish its nonstop clearing system by the end of 2026.
Nasdaq sets new structure for global traders
Supporters of extended trading hours say the move gives overseas traders faster reactions to global events that hit markets when the U.S. is asleep.
Big banks on Wall Street are not fully convinced, since lower liquidity and higher volatility could hit returns.
Demand for night-time trading has still been rising fast. Mack said volumes are usually smaller in extended sessions, but interest has jumped, especially during overnight U.S. hours.
Many traders who want 24/7 access now use off-exchange platforms such as Blue Ocean, Bruce ATS, and OTC Moon. He said, “If you think of those investors around the world, they want to access this huge market on their own terms and they want to do it in their own time zones.”
Trading hours for U.S. exchanges are more than a century old. They were originally built for paper orders on physical floors, but electronic trading never really changed the schedule.
The shift to 23/5 marks the biggest overhaul of those hours in modern times.
Earlier this year, Nasdaq also filed to allow trading of tokenized stocks, taking advantage of eased crypto rules under President Trump.
Mack said their systems can handle heavy traffic, adding, “When there’s market stress and volatility, the traffic in the market and the activity levels pick up significantly.”
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