Nasdaq moves to make trading nearly 24 hours. Why some on Wall Street say that's a bad idea

Nasdaq

is moving closer to around-the-clock stock trading, a shift that some on Wall Street are calling unnecessary — and potentially destabilizing.

The exchange said it plans to submit paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow U.S.-listed equities and exchange-traded products to trade nearly 24 hours a day, five days a week. If approved, the new schedule would launch in the second half of 2026.

Under the proposal, Nasdaq would expand trading hours to 23 hours each weekday from the current 16 hours. Stocks would trade in a “day session” from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time, followed by a one-hour pause for maintenance, testing and clearing. A “night session” would then run from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. the following morning.

Critics argue that formalizing nearly nonstop trading could worsen some of the very problems that plague the structure of equity markets today — thin liquidity, sharp price swings and an increasingly “gamified” trading environment.