Stock Market Hours: When Does the NYSE Open and Close?

The opening bell (9:30 a.m. ET). Both exchanges open with an auction that matches the orders accumulated overnight and in pre-market trading into a single opening price for each stock. Stocks with an imbalance can open a few minutes late; the index futures that trade overnight on CME Globex usually tell you which way the open will lean.

The regular session (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET). Six and a half hours of continuous trading with no lunch break. The first and last half hours carry the heaviest volume; midday is the quietest stretch. Economic data releases at 8:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. ET and the Federal Reserve's 2:00 p.m. ET announcements are the scheduled volatility points inside the day.

The closing bell (4:00 p.m. ET). The closing auction sets the official closing price used for index funds, mutual fund NAVs and every "the market closed up 1%" headline. It is the single largest liquidity event of the day, which is why so much institutional volume prints at 4:00 p.m. sharp.

Extended hours. Pre-market (4:00 to 9:30 a.m. ET) and after-hours (4:00 to 8:00 p.m. ET) trading is where earnings reports, released before the open or after the close, get their first reaction. Liquidity is thin, spreads are wide, limit orders are mandatory, and a price you see at 6:00 p.m. may not survive until the next opening auction.

Early closes (1:00 p.m. ET). Two days a year the NYSE and Nasdaq close at 1:00 p.m. ET: the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve when it falls on a weekday. See the 2026 holiday calendar for the dates and for the ten full-day closures.

23-hour trading from December 6, 2026. The SEC approved Nasdaq's 23/5 plan on April 10, 2026. From December 6, 2026 the Nasdaq Stock Market trades a day session from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET and a night session from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. ET, Sunday night to Friday morning, with a one-hour break in between; NYSE Arca extends to 1:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. ET Monday to Thursday and to 8:00 p.m. on Fridays, subject to clearing (DTCC) and market-data (SIP) readiness. Nothing changes about the bell: the regular session, the opening auction and the 4:00 p.m. closing auction stay where they are, and this site's status will show the night session as extended hours from the day it goes live.

Daylight saving time. The bell rings at 9:30 a.m. New York time in every season. Visitors elsewhere see the hours move: for most of the year New York is five hours behind London and six behind Central Europe, but because the US changes its clocks in mid-March and early November while Europe changes at the end of March and October, the gap narrows by an hour for a few weeks each spring and autumn.