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extra-hours trading

posted 06/18/08 08:20 AM | Viewed 285 times
kitchen_open_late_sign.jpgIf you’re looking for a little extra market-open time, you’ll be interested to know TradeKing has recently added Extra-Hours Trading to our online capabilities. Now you can trade from 8AM – 5PM ET, a tidy improvement over the usual 9:30 AM – 4PM ET trading day on the NYSE.

Extra-hours trading can come in handy: to act on after-hours earnings or avoid a gapping open, for example, or simply because it’s more convenient than trading at work (um, because NOBODY in this community is sneaking in a few extra trades on the boss’ dime, right?)

At the same time, extra-hours trading has its limitations, too. Only listed securities can be traded during extra-hours sessions; there’s usually less liquidity and wider spreads; and, as a result of all of the above, no guarantee of execution. If you’re going to trade in these sessions, you might want to stick to limit orders to ensure a price you like – and watch those orders closely.

To learn more, check out this interesting TK Community forum thread on the topic…or hit us with your questions here!

[image: Open Late by Chang’r on flickr]
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corbinb2

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corbinb2
Posted June 18, 2008 (09:45AM)

If I understand correctly, after hours holdings can only be traded in after hours trading? For example, you buy Citibank during after hours trading and want to sell it at a certain price. If that price happens during regular trading hours, your limit order would not be executed until the after hours session, assuming the limit price was still met at that time.

 

In short, after hours trading and regular hours trading are essentially separate trading sessions from each other. Thought this might be good to bring up for the newbies out there.

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DavidDT Trading-to-Win.com

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DavidDT Trading-to-Win.com
Posted June 18, 2008 (02:22PM)
corbinb - some "technology lagging" brokers, like Fidelity, have separate order entry for "market hours only" and " extended hours only" - which is plain STUPID ( Unless you use ActiveTraderPro ) . Normal brokers have "DAY" or "DAY + EXT" ( or "GTC" and  "GTC + EXT") It does not matter during what session your trading instrument was bough - the only difference is - "how your broker structured order entry" ( NOTE: EXT hours are LIMIT ONLY and stop loss or trailing orders do NOT work after market, there is no "all or none" as well... oh BTW - options do NOT trade EXT HOURS :-) )
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DannyUpshaw

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DannyUpshaw
Posted June 19, 2008 (11:43PM)
I made my first after hours trade a week or two ago.  was cool. :)
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irishneal11

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irishneal11
Posted June 23, 2008 (02:03PM)

Good Afternoon Everyone:
Let me clarify how extended trading works.  All extended hours orders would need to be be placed via the Extra Hours page on the trading tab during either the (pre-market session 8:00am EST to 9:29am EST or the after hours session, 4pm EST to 5pm EST).  Unfortunately orders placed for the regular trading session 9:30am to 4pm EST) would not transfer over to the after hours session. These trades would be routed to the proper exchange and would not be able to be transferred to an ECN (electronic communication network) for execution in the after hours. Should you want to place an order for a stock in the after hours you would need to make sure any GTC orders for those same shares be cancelled prior to 4pm EST.  I understand there are some limitations unfortunately due to the technology involved they are unavoidable at this time. We will certainly continue to look into alternatives which can offer more flexibility in the future.

Regards Neal Atkins - Supervisor E-Communications - TradeKing

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bigdog

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bigdog
Posted June 24, 2008 (03:33PM)
Hey, guys. I've been traveling, so I asked Neal to weigh in on our extra-hours trading process in my absence. As he explains, right now extra-hours orders don't carry over automatically into the regular trading sessions. I'm 100% in agreement with David DT that this isn't perfectly convenient, but we went this route simply because it would allow us to offer extra-hours trading faster, albeit with a little inconvenience involved. In the long run, we plan on integrating these two trading sessions more tightly.
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