The “business hours” boundaries of traditional finance are gradually being broken down.
Cboe (Chicago Board Options Exchange) announced that, starting October 19, it will add two trading sessions for options on 24 actively traded stocks and 5 ETFs: a pre-market session from 7:30 to 9:25 a.m. Eastern Time, and an after-hours session from 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. More options contracts with early-morning expirations are scheduled to launch on November 9.
There are three noteworthy signals behind this news:
1. Options trading is moving toward “nearly around-the-clock” trading. With pre-market and after-hours sessions added, liquidity and volatility may spread into non-core hours, increasing both gap risk and short-term opportunities. Retail investors need to reassess their strategies for holding positions overnight.
2. Traditional institutions are playing catch-up. From the outset, crypto markets have offered continuous 24/7 pricing, with trading running through weekends and overnight, while stock and options markets are still constrained by fixed trading hours. In essence, Cboe’s extended trading hours are traditional finance’s attempt to catch up with this around-the-clock pricing model.
3. Cross-market sentiment will spread faster. The more trading hours overlap, the faster macroeconomic data, earnings reports, and unexpected risk events will be priced into options markets. Pre-market moves may also become an earlier window into institutional risk appetite, in turn influencing the intraday rhythm of risk assets such as Bitcoin.
As stock options start “working overtime,” demand for continuous trading and continuous pricing will only grow—and that is precisely the structural advantage crypto markets have from the start.
#期权 #Cboe #Market Watch