How Does the US Market Work
What is After-Hours trading?
Overview
In this article, we will introduce:
What is After-Hours trading?
What investment products in Moomoo support After-Hours trading?
What are the After-Hours trading hours?
The benefits and risks of After-hours trading
For most stock markets, the main trading session takes place during the daytime. However, trading activity isn't restricted to the time of day. It does, in fact, take place after the market closes - once normal business hours are done. This is known as the after-hours trading session.
After-Hours Trading
After-hours trading is the period of time after the market closes when an investor can buy and sell securities outside regular trading hours.
The trading volume during the after-hours trading session tends to be fairly thin. That's because there are usually very few active traders during this time period. This can change, though, with volume spiking if there's big economic news or something breaks about a company.
Investment Products
Stocks, Options, ETFs, ADRs, OTC, U.S. IPOs
Moomoo currently does not support Mutual Funds and Bonds.
Trading Hours Coverage
After-hours trading can be divided into two different parts of the day, Pre-Market Hours and After-Market Hours. Moomoo offers our clients a variety of assets covering multiple markets, the total trading hours can last about 22 hours.
Pre-Market Hours: 04:00 EST – 09:30 EST
Regular Hours: 09:30 EST – 16:00 EST
After-Market Hours: 16:00 EST – 20:00 EST
Benefits and Risks of After-hours trading
After-hours trading allows investors to
Trading on fresh information: react immediately to breaking news
Pricing opportunities: you may find some appealing prices during this time
Convenience: added flexibility of trading
However, After-hours trading does have some risks. Risks associated with after-hours trading include:
Less liquidity: less trading volume for your stock, and it may be harder to convert shares to cash
Wider spreads: a lower volume in trading may result in a wider spread between the bid and ask prices
More competition from institutional investors
More volatility
Source: Investopedia