Extended hours: 7:30–9:25 AM ET & 4:00–4:15 PM ETReact to overnight news, earnings and futures moves before the crowd. Only these 29 chains, limit orders only.
Regular hours: 9:30 AM–4:00 PM ETEvery listed options chain, on every exchange. Everyone else waits for this bell.
What pre-market moves did, 2016–2024
23 eligible stocks · the move from the prior close to 7:30 AM ET, in units of the stock’s normal daily move (σ)
Tested: no edge after costs. We pre-registered 38 rules for trading these moves in the 7:30–9:25 AM ET window and after the 4:00 PM close, and tested them on 2016–2021. None beat the bid–ask spread. Below is what history did. It is context, not a signal.
The 29 eligible chains
Ranked by options liquidity, tightest first: liquid, then wide, then thin, each by its at-the-money bid/ask width.
Limit orders onlyMarket and stop orders are rejected in the extended sessions. Set your price from the stock's pre-market quote.
Expect wide quotesFewer market makers quote before the open, so spreads are wider than after the regular open, especially in the first minutes of pre-market.
Expiration daySingle-stock options trade until 4:15 PM ET, but in or out of the money is still set by the 4:00 PM close.
Your broker must support itMark the order for extended or all sessions. Launch partners include Fidelity, IBKR, Robinhood, Webull, moomoo, TradeStation and Tradier. On Robinhood and Webull it works in the mobile apps only for now, not on the web.
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