Starting Monday, August 17, early risers on Wall Street get a new reason to set their alarms. The Cboe Options Exchange will begin offering pre-market trading sessions for select single-stock equity options at 7:30 a.m. ET, a full two hours before the traditional opening bell.
It’s the first time a US options exchange has allowed single-stock equity options to trade outside the standard 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET window.
What’s actually changing
Cboe’s new structure adds two sessions to the trading day. The morning Global Trading Hours (GTH) session runs from 7:30 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. ET, with order acceptance starting at 7:15 a.m. ET. After the regular session closes at 4:00 p.m. ET, a brief 15-minute “curb session” extends trading to 4:15 p.m. ET.
The lineup at launch covers roughly 20 of the most actively traded names on the market. All seven members of the so-called Magnificent 7 are included: Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet. The roster also features AMD and Palantir, among others.
