Nasdaq's 24/5 Trading Era Begins December 6, 2026 With 23-Hour Sessions

What exactly changes, and when does it start?

According to a report by CNA (中央社), Nasdaq's "Global Trading Hours" plan will formally launch on December 6, 2026, ushering in an era of trading five days a week, 23 hours a day. Under the new system, the market pauses for just one hour — from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. U.S. Eastern time (8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Taiwan time) — for system maintenance and other operations.

CNA further reports that the new structure splits into two sessions: a day session running from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time, followed by the one-hour maintenance pause, and a night session running from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. the next day.

How did regulators get here, and what comes next?

CNA reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved Nasdaq's proposal on April 10, 2026, with the actual rollout timeline tied to system upgrades at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and the Securities Information Processor (SIP) infrastructure.

Regulatory scrutiny is not finished: per the same CNA report, the SEC will hold a public roundtable on September 17 to discuss the infrastructure, risks, and readiness for round-the-clock stock market operations — a session that will unfold roughly three months before the December 6 launch.

Why is Nasdaq doing this?

CNA quotes Nasdaq North America senior vice president Chuck Mack saying the reform "is not just about extending trading hours" but aims to "expand the opportunity for global investors to participate in the U.S. stock market," letting investors in different time zones trade at convenient times "while maintaining market trust and order." Liberty Times (自由時報), reporting the same remarks a day later, corroborates this framing, describing the goal as broadening global investor access to U.S. equities.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, in an interview with Yahoo Finance cited by CNA, framed the shift in global terms: "This is a market that circles the globe — somewhere in the world, there is always an exchange that is open," adding that many assets already trade continuously even outside standard business hours.

How much foreign money is already in U.S. stocks?

Both CNA and Liberty Times cite the same figure from BigGo Finance: foreign investors' holdings of U.S. stocks reached $17 trillion as of mid-2024. Liberty Times adds the New Taiwan Dollar equivalent — NT$546.9 trillion — underscoring the scale of the overseas capital already exposed to the U.S. market that the extended-hours plan is designed to serve.

How is Japan responding?

Liberty Times reports that Japan's brokerage industry is moving quickly. Four named online brokers — SBI Securities, Rakuten Securities, Monex Securities, and Matsui Securities — have said they will open U.S. stock trading during Japanese daytime hours starting December 6, the same day Nasdaq's extended hours begin. A separate Liberty Times line references five Japanese online brokers as planning to open simultaneously from December 6, though only four are named as committed to that exact date.

A fifth broker, Mitsubishi UFJ eSmart Securities, told Liberty Times it is considering a phased approach, to be decided after confirming actual trading demand — a more cautious stance than the four peers that have already committed to a same-day launch.

What is Japan's government worried about?

Liberty Times reports that Japan's government has flagged a policy concern: retail trading volume in foreign stocks — mostly U.S. equities — has, in the government's own characterization, "increased sharply" in recent years, a trend it attributes largely to day traders. The government warned that if this retail buying momentum in U.S. stocks continues, it could also push more Japanese companies to list in the U.S., "hollowing out" Japan's domestic capital market and undermining the government's own "asset management nation" policy.

What else is Nasdaq building beyond 24/5 trading?

CNA reports that Nasdaq is also advancing tokenized securities. After winning SEC approval, Nasdaq partnered in March with Payward — the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken — to build a "stock transformation gateway" linking regulated tokenized stock markets with blockchain networks. That infrastructure is expected to begin operating in the first half of 2027, positioning the extended-hours launch as one part of a broader push toward continuous, digitally-linked U.S. equity trading.

Key dates and figures at a glance

What this means

The evidence lines up two parallel stories moving on the same clock. On the U.S. side, CNA's reporting shows a regulator-approved timeline — SEC sign-off on April 10, a September 17 infrastructure roundtable, and a December 6 launch — that Nasdaq's own executives, per both CNA and Liberty Times, frame around expanding access for the $17 trillion (NT$546.9 trillion) of foreign-held U.S. equity already in the system. On the Japan side, Liberty Times' reporting shows brokers responding faster than regulators are comfortable with: four major online brokers are committing to a same-day December 6 launch, a fifth is hedging with a phased rollout, and Japan's government is simultaneously warning that the same retail appetite driving this response could hollow out its own domestic capital market. The infrastructure enabling 24/5 trading and the tokenized-stock gateway targeted for 2027 both trace back to the same April SEC approval — suggesting, from the evidence CNA reported, that extended hours are one piece of a longer Nasdaq roadmap rather than a standalone change.