The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is considering going 24/7, the FT reported on Monday. The exchange polled market participants about the merits of round-the-clock trading of stocks.

Current overnight offerings only allow retail traders to put in “limit” orders where they state the price at which they would buy or sell. If that is not met, the order expires, unfilled, the next morning.

The survey by the NYSE was put out by its data analytics team and not its executive leadership, but it showcases the growing desire by investors to be able to trade on in any time zone and the NYSE’s recognition that people are already doing it on Robinhood, Interactive Brokers and other apps.

Right now, investors can only trade equities on the exchange between 9:30am and 4pm ET, while other assets including stock futures, US Treasury bonds, and cryptocurrencies can be bought and sold 24/7.

Survey questions

NYSE’s survey asked respondents whether they thought round-the-clock trading should take place at weekends as well as through a five-day week, how investors should be protected from price swings, and how respondents would staff any overnight session.

Trades on exchanges also form part of the official record (or “consolidated tape”) of trading prices, so night-time activity could set the tone for regular hours trading.

Questions and concerns

An overnight exchange raises questions in terms of regulatory oversight, since exchanges like the NYSE are directly supervised by the SEC and tested for their stability and security as well as needing approval to alter any rules.

Besides sufficient regulatory oversight and settlement issues, other concerns about the proposed 24/7 trading schedule include staffing issues at firms themselves, monitoring trades and handling unexpected issues as they arise.

24X

The NYSE survey comes as start-up 24 Exchange, backed by Steve Cohen’s Point72 Ventures fund, seeks SEC approval to launch the first round-the-clock exchange. That filing is the second attempt for 24X, which withdrew a proposal last year over operational and technical issues.

“The same people that trade cryptocurrencies started to trade more stocks because of the GameStop movement and the overall participation of retail that [has] increased significantly,” 24 Exchange founder and CEO Dmitri Galinov said in December 2021. “If Elon Musk tweets something on Saturday, people would want to buy or sell Tesla stock.”