Extended-hours US options trading (EXT orders)

To line up a stock order during the pre-market or after-hours session for the US markets, all you need to do is select EXT in the Time-in-Force (TIF) drop-down menu in the order ticket. EXT orders can only be a Limit order. Additionally, stop-orders are not active during the pre-market or after-hours trading session. Extended-hour trading is only available for stocks/ETFs; you cannot place an extended-hour trade on equity options. Our extended-hours session is 1.5 hours before the open and 4 hours after the close.

Extended-hours trading session (Chicago time)

Pre-market trading session: 7.00 am to 8.30 am CT.

After-hours trading session: 3.00 pm to 7.00 pm CT.

Orders by phone, e-mail, or chat to our trade desk will be available until 4.00 pm CT.

Extended-hours trades entered during the pre-market or normal trading session (8.30 am to 3.00 pm) will continue to work and expire at 7.00 pm the day it was entered. Also, please be aware that stop orders do not carry over into extended hours. Lastly, note that options do not trade during extended hours, except for a handful of ETF options that trade until 3.15 pm CT, or 15 minutes after the close of the market.

How to place an extended-hours order?

Once a stock order is queued in the trading platform, navigate to the Time-in-Force (TIF) dropdown on the right side of the order ticket and select EXT for an extended-hour order.

Order types

Note that outside of regular trading hours, the order types accepted by the system are also limited. That means market orders and stop orders can't be entered. Instead, market participants must use limit orders only, which is an order type that guarantees the price you entered or better but doesn’t guarantee a fill. Using limit orders during the extended-hours trading session applies to equities, equity options, futures, and options on futures.

You can select extended hours as their time-in-force (aka "EXT limit") to trade during the pre-market and post-market. In terms of other securities, options on single stocks are not open for trading outside of the regular daytime trading session, which means options-related transactions in single stocks cannot be executed during the pre-market and post-market sessions. However, some ETF options do continue to trade after the regular daytime session, from 3.00 pm CT to 3.15 pm CT, or 15 minutes after the regular trading session closes.

Risks of extended-hours trading

Importantly, the dynamics of the pre-market and post-market trading sessions can differ greatly from the regular daytime session, and one of the most important considerations is liquidity—or lack thereof. Liquidity in the financial markets is defined as the ability to easily convert an asset into cash without significantly affecting the associated market price of that asset.

A high degree of liquidity helps ensure that pricing in a given market is as efficient as possible. Unfortunately, the pre-market and post-market trading sessions frequently offer suboptimal liquidity. This means that executing trades during these sessions can significantly affect prices resulting in unfavorable pricing. Slippage is the term to describe a situation when an investor faces difficulty or unfavorable pricing when entering or exiting a trade due to lack of liquidity.

In general, attempting to execute an order outside the regular daytime session may not be able to complete your entire order at the posted bid/offer prices and will, therefore, be forced to accept a suboptimal price (sometimes significantly) to complete the order. You can also wait until the regular daytime session begins, but there is no guarantee where the market opens. In addition to suboptimal liquidity, the pre-market and post-market sessions may also be characterised by the following:

Market gaps
Elevated volatility
Wider bid-ask spreads