With growing demand from retail and global investors, evolving technology, and regulatory interest, the idea of 24-hour trading is no longer theoretical. Developments in 24-hour trading are unfolding on a regular basis. Earlier this month, Charles Schwab made headlines by announcing it would offer 24-hour access to more than 1,000 stocks and ETFs.
On a recent Security Traders Association (STA) Open Call, Brian Hyndman, President and CEO of Blue Ocean Technologies, one of the early players in the overnight equity space, joined STA’s Jim Toes to talk about how quickly things are changing, and what comes next.
“We’re in the first inning,” Hyndman said. “Maybe we’re approaching the second inning, but it’s still very early days in the evolution of 24-hour trading in U.S. equities,” Hyndman said.
He said that retail investors were the early adopters. Platforms like Robinhood and Interactive Brokers were among the first to enable their users to trade outside normal hours. That base has since grown, now including firms like Schwab, Webull, and First Trade. Still, the space remains predominantly retail—for now.
“It’s still about 90% retail,” Hyndman said. “But we’re starting to see hedge funds and institutional players come on the platform. And we think that will accelerate over the next half year.”
One of the strongest use cases for extended hours trading is international access. While U.S.-based investors tend to dip into the overnight session around earnings or major news events, Asian investors often use it to trade American stocks during their own daylight hours. That’s a critical driver of volume today and a key reason global expansion remains a focus.
Hyndman said the overnight trading environment is still maturing, and several important components are not yet in place. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” Hyndman said. For example, smart order routing is going to be essential as more venues start participating.
Right now, overnight trading is fragmented, but eventually, just like in the evolution of ECNs in the late 1990s, these pools of liquidity will need to connect, he said. Surveillance and compliance are also critical areas of focus. With trading now taking place outside of traditional hours, firms are under pressure to ensure their systems can monitor for unusual or abusive behavior with the same rigor as during the regular session. Hyndman noted that achieving “exchange-grade” oversight, even within an alternative trading system, is an important step toward gaining market trust.
There are also operational and regulatory hurdles that will take time to resolve. Trade reporting systems like the SIP and DTCC need to operate nearly around the clock. Brokers must be able to process corporate actions like dividends and splits efficiently and accurately in compressed timeframes, often within an hour, he said.
These aren’t small tweaks—they require meaningful coordination across the industry, which is one reason why Hyndman believes national exchanges that have filed to enter the 24-hour trading space may take longer than expected to go live. He doesn’t view them as threats, though. In fact, he sees their participation as a positive signal that the industry is moving forward. “I think it’s going to create a rising tide,” he said. “The pie will get bigger.”
Toes raised an important question during the conversation—one that many firms are grappling with internally. If there’s so much noise around 24-hour trading, why aren’t more clients demanding it directly? Why aren’t firms seeing account closures or asset transfers over the issue?
Hyndman’s answer was simple: it’s already happening, just not in ways that always show up on internal dashboards. “It could be episodic, like a Sunday night after the news shows, or when a major headline breaks. But it’s also happening quietly in Asia. That’s where a lot of our volume is coming from—people who want to trade Tesla, Nvidia, or Microsoft during their daytime hours.”
Looking ahead, Hyndman expects to see continued growth—but in stages. He doesn’t predict a full transformation in a year or even two. But give it five to seven years, and he believes the market could look very different.
“I think we can get to 1 or 2 billion shares a night,” he said. “The demand is that big. But it’s going to change slowly. Infrastructure takes time, and regulation moves carefully. The entire world is watching this space right now. And the goal isn’t just to move fast—it’s to get it right.”