Why do stock trading allowed in trading hours only, between 9 am to 4 pm ? why not 24 hours ?

Question

Why do stock trading allowed in trading hours only, between 9 am to 4 pm ? why not 24 hours ?

Answer 1

Stock markets are only open for part of the day for 2 reasons:

- because it would cost more $ to keep them open 24 hours a day and not much more trading would be seen

- because it gives the companies with stocks that trade on the exchange an opportunity to release news or new information about itself when the market is closed. In this way, the companies enwsure full disclosure and investors have a chance to study and think about it before trading on it. Having the market closed for part of the day actually lowers volatility.

Hope this helps -

Answer 2

Time is needed to tally the results - if the stock market were a 24 hour system there would never be an opportunity to accurately balance the books and determine how much capital a company gained or lost by selling stock.  DAily, Weekly, Quarterly and Yealry reports on the value of a business need to be summarized.

Answer 3

Actually you can trade 24 hours. there are markets in different time zones that you can trade on.  ie.:  San Francisco closes after New York.  talk to your stock broker or go on line.