By Suzanne McGee
(Reuters) – Charles Schwab Corp plans to expand the availability of 24-hour trading to include all stocks in major U.S. indexes as well as hundreds of ETFs beginning in about two weeks, the brokerage said in a statement on Wednesday.
The move comes amid burgeoning interest in extended hours trading from retail investors that is driving some brokers and exchanges to expand their offerings.
Last Friday, the New York Stock Exchange, a division of Intercontinental Exchange, said it would file for permission to extend its trading hours to 22 hours each business day.
“About 90% of the customers we surveyed in our newest Traders Sentiment Survey said they would be interested in participating in 24-hour trading,” said James Kostulias, head of trading services at Schwab.
Kostulias said that the high level of interest seems to be linked to the changing demographics of Schwab’s client base. Nearly 60% of the households that Schwab added as clients in the first half of 2024 are headed by individuals under 40 years of age.
“They seem particularly likely to have an expectation that they will be able to trade any time, anywhere,” Kostulias said.
Interactive Brokers launched its own overnight trading platform a year ago, and has seen volumes in those overnight sessions grow some 500% since then. Robinhood Markets Inc. launched overnight trading in May 2023.
Others are hoping to get in on the action: 24Exchange, a Bermuda-based platform backed in part by hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, is also seeking regulatory approval to offer 24/7 trading in U.S. stocks.
Schwab said it plans a slow rollout of the expanded trading capacity, starting with its most active traders, and won’t begin the process until the week after the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
The expanded trading capabilities will be powered by the platform operated by Blue Ocean Technologies LLC, which also underpins overnight trading for Robinhood Markets Inc. and other U.S. brokerages.
The rollout is expected to be completed midway through the first quarter of 2025, by which time Schwab said clients will have access to overnight trading in all stocks listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Nasdaq 100 Index and hundreds of ETFs. Currently, Schwab offers overnight trading in only about two dozen ETFs.
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on Monday told a conference that regulators’ goals would include ensuring these markets are transparent and that investors are protected from “pockets of illiquidity.”
(Reporting by Suzanne McGee and additional reporting by Douglas Gillison; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Sam Holmes)
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