Beginning on Sunday, December 6, 2026, at 9pm ET, Nasdaq will expand trading of U.S. equities to 23 hours a day, five days a week.
What the industry is calling “23/5 trading” reflects a broader shift in how capital moves around the world. As investing becomes increasingly global, market infrastructure is evolving to provide greater access while maintaining the protections and transparency of a registered national securities exchange.
“23/5 trading reflects a simple reality: global investor behavior is changing, and investors increasingly expect access to U.S. markets that aligns with their own time zones and information cycles,” said Nasdaq’s Chuck Mack, Senior Vice President of North American Markets.
Turning that vision into reality requires more than extended trading hours. It requires coordinated updates across the market ecosystem to ensure investors can access U.S. markets with the same transparency and resiliency they expect today.
Here’s what to know.
What are the current (pre-December 6) trading hours?
The U.S. trading hours currently run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET, with extended trading hours from 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. ET and 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET.
What will be the (December 6 and onward) 23/5 trading hours?
Beginning December 6, the Nasdaq Stock Market will operate 23 hours a day, 5 days a week, from Sunday evening, 9:00 p.m. ET, through Friday evening, 8:00 p.m. ET, with a 1-hour maintenance pause from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET.
What is the one-hour pause?
Between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. ET each weekday, trading will pause to support maintenance activities and certain corporate action processing. The pause supports operational resilience and critical clearing, settlement, and reference data processes.
What will remain the same?
Nasdaq’s approach to 23/5 trading prioritizes resilience, transparency, regulatory alignment, and investor protection.
The model preserves the core U.S. trading session, including the Opening and Closing Crosses, that support efficient price discovery and benchmark pricing for investors.
Supported by institutional-grade technology, ongoing client communication, and transparent operational processes, the framework is designed to expand access to U.S. markets while preserving the integrity, reliability, and investor protections that underpin investor confidence.
What are the Opening and Closing Crosses?
The framework preserves the Opening and Closing Crosses, two of the market’s most important liquidity and price-discovery events that occur at the beginning and end of U.S. trading hours.
The Crosses enable market participants to execute on-open and on-close interest and provide unparalleled transparency into the market open and market close. The Closing Cross also establishes the official closing price for all Nasdaq-listed securities, a benchmark widely used by investors, index providers, and asset managers.
How will this affect U.S. Market Holidays?
23/5 trading will continue to observe U.S. market holidays.
What does 23/5 trading mean for you?
Investors:
- 23/5 trading expands access to U.S. equities across time zones, offering investors U.S. overnight trading on a registered national securities exchange.
- Most liquidity is still expected to remain concentrated during traditional U.S. trading hours. However, new hours provide investors with a transparent and regulated venue to respond to market developments, economic news, earnings announcements, and global events as they occur rather than waiting for the next trading day.
- For broker-dealers and financial intermediaries, the expanded schedule will create opportunities to better serve clients during their local business hours.
Nasdaq Issuers:
- For Nasdaq-listed companies, issuers’ disclosure obligations, investor relations practices, and reporting requirements remain unchanged. Corporate actions and material news announcements will continue to be governed through established regulatory processes, and overnight trading will occur within the oversight of a national securities exchange.
Nasdaq Market Data Users:
- As markets move toward 23/5 trading, market participants will require access to data designed for a significantly longer trading day.
- Nasdaq is introducing enhanced Nasdaq Plus market data products that consolidate information from Nasdaq’s U.S. equity exchanges and support the operational requirements of extended trading sessions.
- Nasdaq Plus provides the foundation customers need to access, integrate, and operationalize expanded-hours market data before the December market expansion.
Nasdaq’s Financial Technology Clients:
- Nasdaq’s Financial Technology equips market participants to navigate evolving market structure, providing the platforms, infrastructure and capabilities needed to adapt to expanded trading hours and build for increasingly connected, always-on markets.
- For banks, brokers, market operators and other financial institutions, the move to 23/5 extends the demands placed on technology and operations across the market lifecycle. Nasdaq’s Financial Technology platforms, including Calypso, Nasdaq Eqlipse, Nasdaq Surveillance and AxiomSL, support institutions across market infrastructure, risk management, market integrity and regulatory reporting, helping them adapt as markets operate for longer and become increasingly continuous.
Why is Nasdaq focused on a resilient 23/5 market?
Trading hours must be as fair and orderly at 2:00 a.m. as they are at 2:00 p.m. That principle underpins Nasdaq’s approach to 23/5 trading.
Historically, U.S. market infrastructure has relied on overnight processing windows for trade reconciliation, clearing, settlement, and reference data updates.
Under 23/5, that window shrinks to one hour, increasing reliance on automation, real-time processing, continuous risk monitoring, and around-the-clock operational support.
Nasdaq’s model integrates key protections through:
- The daily maintenance pause
- Corporate action-related regulatory halts
- Overnight price-band protections
- Enhanced customer disclosures
- Regulatory oversight and transparency requirements
“As we approach December 6, Nasdaq’s guiding principles are focused on transparent communication, industry cohesion, and client needs. That’s what will make this launch a success,” said Mack.
Nasdaq has worked closely with industry participants to support the development, testing, and preparation necessary for extended trading hours, while the applicable regulatory proposals proceed through the approval process.
“You don’t design systems without thinking about interdependencies, how you maintain the system, do failover, do software updates, and add new products and features,” Mack said. “23/5 trading is just another thing that you’re pulling into that complex but well-designed system across the entire industry.”
Nasdaq’s systems have been stress-tested under extreme conditions, including record message traffic and unprecedented volatility, supporting confidence in 23/5 trading hours.
That same focus on resilience extends to cybersecurity. Asked whether AI-driven cyber threats change the risk profile of an overnight trading session, Mack noted that Nasdaq already operates a wide array of systems around the clock.
“The fact that we’ll have a couple more systems running eight hours longer doesn’t significantly change the cyber policies and standards we set,” he said. “We have a very robust program that constantly evolves as new technology emerges, and we account for that.”
Looking ahead
23/5 reflects the continued globalization of investing and the expectation that market access should align with how capital moves today.
By expanding access through a regulated exchange, Nasdaq aims to extend participation while maintaining the transparency and resiliency that underpin U.S. markets.
Learn more on Nasdaq’s 23/5 trading hub.
