Nasdaq will add a new overnight trading session from December, operating from 4:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time as part of a broader move toward almost round-the-clock trading.

It is joining a similar initiative by the New York Stock Exchange, a shift that would make New York's trading week nearly continuous from Sunday through Friday evening, with 24/7 trading as the eventual goal.

Nasdaq is set to begin trading U.S. stocks for almost 23 hours a day on Sunday, December 6, sharply reducing the exchange's closed hours.

The new overnight session, running from 9:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time, would turn the trading day into an almost uninterrupted sequence from Sunday evening through Friday evening.

The plan still requires approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

For European investors, the new trading window will run from 3:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Central European Time, allowing them to trade Nasdaq-listed stocks for almost an entire session before the London Stock Exchange even opens.

Nasdaq already runs pre-market trading between 4:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., as well as after-hours trading from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., around regular market hours.

Access to those sessions, however, has largely been reserved for institutional investors with direct market connections.

Nasdaq President Tal Cohen presented the move as an effort to broaden public access and expand wealth-building opportunities for all investors.

The announcement is also driven by market data: foreign holdings of U.S. equities reached 17 trillion dollars by mid-2024, up 97 percent since 2019. Nasdaq wants to capture that growth directly rather than lose it to platforms that already operate around the clock.

Traditional exchanges are under increasing pressure to expand access and extend their trading hours.

Geopolitical shocks during the Trump administration have repeatedly hit markets while Wall Street was closed.

One prominent example came when U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were announced on Saturday morning, February 28, sending traders to cryptocurrency and decentralised trading platforms to price oil, gold and silver in real time.

Those platforms, along with newer tools, have shown that demand for continuous trading does not wait for exchanges to open.

Nasdaq is not acting alone.

Its rival, the New York Stock Exchange, has already received Securities and Exchange Commission approval for a 22-hour trading day, from 1:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., while Cboe, the largest U.S. exchange for options contracts, has outlined similar ambitions.

Nasdaq first indicated in March that it intended to pursue nearly continuous trading, and this week's announcement fills in the details.

The new overnight session is the first concrete building block, opening the market for almost 23 hours of trading across a five-day week, with the exchange ultimately aiming for 24-hour, seven-day-a-week trading.