The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved Cboe Global Markets' plan to extend trading hours for a select group of single-stock options, moving the derivatives exchange operator closer to its long-standing goal of near-24-hour market access. The Chicago-based firm announced that its Cboe Options Exchange will introduce pre-market and post-market sessions beginning July 13, pending a separate but related regulatory filing.
The new schedule will add a pre-market window from 7:30 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. Eastern Time and a post-market window from 4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. At launch, roughly 20 equity options are expected to qualify, including all seven Magnificent 7 stocks such as Nvidia, Tesla, and Apple, along with other heavily traded names like Palantir, Broadcom, and AMD.
"Today's SEC approval marks an important milestone for the US options industry, as Cboe continues to take the lead in expanding market access to meet growing demand from investors globally," said Meaghan Dugan, Head of US Derivatives at Cboe. She added that the exchange is deliberately taking a measured approach, starting with a select group of single-name options to ensure market safeguards and investor protections remain in place.
The initiative is part of Cboe's broader push to capture international investor demand for U.S. markets outside standard hours. The exchange already offers near-24x5 trading for its proprietary index products, including S&P 500, VIX, Mini S&P 500, and Russell 2000 index options through its Global Trading Hours and Curb Trading Hours sessions. Volume in those extended sessions hit record levels in the first quarter of 2026, rising 32% compared to the same period a year earlier, driven in part by appetite from Asia-Pacific clients.
The practical case for extending single-stock options hours centers on the timing of market-moving information. Earnings releases, guidance updates, and major economic data points frequently land outside the standard 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET window, leaving options holders unable to act until the next regular session. The post-market session in particular gives investors a 15-minute window after the close to respond to after-hours developments, which Cboe said could help reduce contra-exercise risk.
Eligibility requirements are designed to limit the extended sessions to only the most liquid names. To qualify, an equity option must carry an average daily volume of at least 150,000 contracts over the prior six months, while the underlying stock must have a market capitalization of at least $50 billion and average daily share volume of at least 10 million.
The options approval is the latest piece of a larger market structure shift Cboe has been advancing on multiple fronts. As reported earlier, the exchange filed a separate SEC proposal to launch near-23x5 equities trading on its EDGX exchange, targeting a December 2026 debut contingent on regulatory approval and industry infrastructure readiness.
For financial advisors, the extended hours could offer new opportunities to manage client portfolios around earnings events and macroeconomic data releases. However, the limited number of eligible names and the brief post-market window may constrain the strategy's immediate impact. The move also aligns with broader industry trends toward round-the-clock trading, as seen in the growth of overnight equity trading platforms and the increasing demand from international investors.
