U.S. Stock Market Hours: Open, Close, and Holidays

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq open at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and close at 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. That stretch is when the most shares change hands. You can also trade before the open and after the close. Fewer shares trade then, and your broker may not offer the full window.

Key takeaways

• Regular hours run 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. That is 6.5 hours.
• NYSE Arca starts an early session at 4:00 a.m. Eastern. Some other NYSE markets start at 7:00 a.m. On a normal day the late session runs until 8:00 p.m.
• The exchanges close on Saturday, Sunday, and on market holidays. On a few days each year they close the regular session at 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
• Times below are Eastern. The clock further down shows the same hours in your time zone.

Regular hours = 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday

These times come from the NYSE hours and holiday calendar (opens in a new tab). Your broker can open a shorter early or late window. The 9:30 a.m. open and the 4:00 p.m. close stay where they are.

Regular trading hours

The opening auction sets the first price of the regular session. The closing auction at 4:00 p.m. Eastern sets the official close, the price quoted as the day's close. A trade at 3:58 p.m. does not set that price. A trade at 4:05 p.m. belongs to the late session.

The first minutes after 9:30 a.m. often move more than midday. Traders are still reacting to overnight news, earnings, and the economic reports that come out around 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

Funds, indexes, and options use the closing price. That is why the 4:00 p.m. auction matters more than the last trade just before it.

Pre-market

NYSE Arca trades from 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Eastern. Several other NYSE markets start at 7:00 a.m. Nasdaq trades through the same morning. Your broker picks a start time inside that range. If the app says pre-market starts at 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m., that is your broker's window. The exchange open is still 9:30 a.m.

Fewer shares trade before 9:30 a.m. The gap between the best bid and the best ask is often wider, so a small trade can move the price a lot. That move does not have to carry into the regular session. The opening auction sets the 9:30 a.m. price.

After-hours

The late session runs from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern on a normal day. Companies often report earnings then. Apple has reported after the close. The stock can trade at one price that evening and open the next morning at another. The evening price is what those trades paid. The official close still comes from the 4:00 p.m. auction.

On early-close days the late session ends at 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

We take market cap from the latest share price in each snapshot. A price from before the open or after the close can differ from the regular-session price. See how the ranking works.

What changes between sessions

You are looking at the same stocks, with fewer people trading. The gap between bid and ask is wider. Your broker may skip order types it offers at noon. Some stocks do not trade at all before 9:30 a.m. or after 4:00 p.m.

None of that tells you when to buy or sell. It tells you which price you are looking at.

Market holidays and early closes

NYSE and Nasdaq close for the same U.S. holidays: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday (often called Presidents Day), Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. If the holiday lands on a weekend, the exchanges usually close on a nearby weekday instead. In 2028 they skip New Year's Day, because January 1 is a Saturday and they do not take a weekday off for it.

The list below is the NYSE calendar. On an early-close day, regular stock trading ends at 1:00 p.m. Eastern.

Hours in your time zone

The U.S. switches to daylight time on the second Sunday in March and back to standard time on the first Sunday in November. London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Sydney do not switch on those same Sundays. For a couple of weeks each spring and fall, the hour gap between New York and Europe is different from the rest of the year.

The table uses your time zone. Pick another city in the market hours calculator.

For general education only. Nothing here is investment advice.