5 Apr 2021, 10:01

It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you can place a trade on the US stock exchanges. Like all shopping malls, there are operating hours for everyone to buy and sell their goods. If you are trading from the other side of the world just like us, do you know the local opening and closing time for the greatest marketplace in the world?

What are the operating hours?

The opening hours of both New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Exchange are at 9:30 am New York Time. Both exchanges close at 4 pm New York Time. If you are trading from the United States and Americas, it should be fairly straight-forward. However, if you are living in the West Coast, you may have to wake up a little earlier to catch the opening bell.

What can you do if you are in another time zone?

For most of our members residing in Asia, catching the opening bell is a little bit tricky though. The advantage of trading from Singapore Time Zone (GMT 800hr) is that we can place our trades after coming from work and a nice hot shower. [IL1]  This also means that you do not need to monitor your stocks while you are at work.

However, do take note that the US stock exchanges will open at different times of the year. This is because US observes Daylight Saving Timing (DST).

What is Daylight Saving Timing (DST)?

Daylight Saving is the practice of “adding another hour to their clock”. Simply put, Americans will be setting their clocks forward by an hour during DST. Why do they do it? This is because they want to take advantage of longer natural daylight during the evenings of summer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time.

DST starts on the 2nd Sunday of March and last till the 1st Sunday of November. During this period of time, the US stock markets opens at 9:30pm Singapore Time. For the remainder of the year, the US stock markets opens an hour later at 10:30pm Singapore Time. If you are living in New York Time Zone, market will always open at 9:30am local time. 

What can you do to check the opening hours?

To check what time the US stock market opens in your respective time zones, there is a few useful websites you can use. One useful link is https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/. Therefore, if you are in Asia or other parts of the world where DST is not observed, please take note of the difference in operating hours. 

Quick summary for you to digest

1     US stock markets open at 9.30am New York Time.

2     If you are residing in Singapore (GMT +8), these are the local times when the US stock market opens

-          Mar- Nov: 9.30 pm

-          Nov- Mar: 10.30 pm