Report · Asia News Today
Traders work in the S&P options pit at the Cboe Global Markets exchange on Sept. 16, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott Olson | Getty Images The options market is about to get even bigger on Monday when Cboe Global Markets extends trading hours for options on two-dozen stocks and a handful of ETFs. After first receiving approval by the SEC in May, regulators have now given the green light to the exchange and the Options Clearing Corp. to offer trading on 24 of the most actively traded companies and five exchange-traded funds between 7:30 a.m. and 9:25 a.m.
ET and 4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET. It's another step towards around-the-clock trading.
Cboe already offers pre- and post-market periods for index options. Trading during those hours has grown in popularity, with a record 228,097 average options traded in the pre-market session daily last quarter, according to exchange data shared with CNBC. The list, which will be updated twice a year, starts with the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks, several big-tech giants, including Oracle and Micron, as well as popular retail-trading names like Robinhood, Nokia, and Palantir.
Pfizer and Alibaba also make the cut. The ETF options include the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM), SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), and the State Street Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF). "More investors than ever appreciate the power of optionality and what it can do for their portfolios, and the pace of adoption and growth of the market really reflect that," Rob Hocking, global head of derivatives at Cboe, said in an email.
"We continue to push the next frontier of innovation, expanding access and introducing new ways for investors to trade and manage risk." To meet the criteria for the extended hours, underlying securities must have an average daily volume for the preceding six months of 150,000 contracts or higher, a market value of $50 billion, and an average daily volume of at least 10 million shares. As a result, SpaceX does not yet qualify. Brokers including TradeStation and Robinhood Markets have said they'll offer trading during the sessions.
"Cboe's expansion of options trading hours gives traders greater flexibility to respond to market-moving events as they happen," John Bartleman, president and chief executive officer of TradeStation Group, Inc., said via email. "We believe traders deserve access to the markets when opportunity strikes." The extended hours are part of a series of upcoming options-market structure expansions. On Nov. 9, the exchange plans to list additional morning expiries for options.
Separately, Cboe also received SEC approval Tuesday to offer binary options tied to company-specific key performance indicators (KPIs). "If you think about extended trading from a vol perspective it makes sense," Noel Smith, CIO of Convex Asset Management, said by phone. "Add more increments of time and you smooth out the effects of jump risks – it makes things less lumpy.
It also gives Asian and European traders something to do and not to mention a graveyard shift at Citadel, Susquehanna, etc."
Source: CNBC
