Extended Hours Trading

Eligible Securities

Only unconditional limit orders on exchange listed and NASDAQ securities are eligible for execution, any size.

Placing a Trade

Extended hours trades must be placed with a time in force of GTEM (Good Till Extended Market).

Extended Hours Trading Commissions

$25 up to 5000 shares, .003¢ per share over 5000. Click here for our complete commission schedule.

How Extended Hours Trading Differs From Regular Hours

Extended Trading Hours are those periods when trades can be placed and potentially executed. The term specifically refers to stock trading outside Wall Street's traditional trading hours of 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. Extended Hours investing involves unique risks that investors should fully understand before placing an order after hours. These risks include, but are not limited to, greater price volatility, less liquidity, and wider bid/ask spreads than during regular market hours. Prior to participating in this unique Extended Hours session, you should review and be aware of the various risks and requirements involved in Extended Hours Trading. While trading in the Extended Hours sessions is not new, in the past it has been a mostly institutional market with institutional traders working primarily on behalf of banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds.

Nature of Extended Hours Trading

A new crop of electronic trading venues, often called electronic communications networks (ECN's) have been developed recently, targeting individual investors who want to trade during nontraditional hours. So far, these systems have not standardized either the way they work or the time periods that they operate.

Since Extended Hours Trading for retail customers is still a relatively small market, many brokerage firms staff for the traditional trading hours, with a smaller staff during the Extended Trading sessions. The availability of customer support staff and other particulars relating to policies and operations during Extended Hours Trading hours may also be limited, including access to account information and account representatives and support staff (such as margin clerks and cashiers) especially in the event of heavy Internet traffic, phone usage, or system capacity problems.

As mentioned above, there are many different systems currently offering Extended Hours Trading. While NASDAQ began leaving its quotation reporting system running during Extended Hours in October 1999, this simply means quotes are available from the various ECN's. Most brokerages opt to allow customers to make Extended Hours trades only in the brokerage's designated system.

Most ECN's only allow customers to enter limit orders, meaning that they will only accept orders to buy and sell at a specific price. If a trade can't be consummated at that price, the order will go unfilled. Essentially, the EC systems simply list orders to buy and sell, and when they detect a match, the system automatically executes the trades. Regardless of whether or not a particular ECN allows market orders or sticks to limit orders only, it is good practice to for investors to place only limit orders, thus protecting themselves somewhat from the wide price swings that might occur in the Pre and Extended-trading session market, where trading volume is lower.

Price Quotes for Extended Hours Trading

The NASDAQ is already keeping its trade-reporting system running after 4 p.m. ET. NASDAQ consolidates these reports and sells them to market news and quote vendors. NASDAQ strongly recommends that organizations that display Pre and Extended-hours quotes should identify them as such. CNBC, for example, on the streaming ticker on its TV channel, displays after-hours quotes of NASDAQ trades until 6:30 p.m. ET. It shades after-hours trades in gold, to differentiate them from other trades.