jr1jz

Maybe a newb question but.. What moves price after hours if the public cant trade? Or can they?

Brendan Egan

Most direct access platforms allow you to trade pre-market and post-market hours. However there are times that the markets are completely closed overnight. Price movements are still simply due to changes in supply and demand--even though the stock is not traded for some time. This is what causes price to "gap" up or down in the morning (a change in supply or demand vs. the equilibrium that was reached at the close of the market).

Great question and I hope my answer makes sense--let me know if not

-Brendan

MoMoney

Good question - and when i first started trading i was wondering the same thing.

Brendan is right in his answer and just to add to it you have to remember that when our market closes in the US markets over seas are just opening. Now - let's take recent events into account and it will make more sense to you. Market's overseas were doing ok and US was about the same - but right after Alcoa reported Q4 results after hours here....stocks immediately were trading lower overseas.

The following morning US stocks started much lower because of AA and the decline overseas just added more misery. I trade with Lightspeed and i can place actual trades as early as 7 am, but have noticed many times that there are some (not sure if it's institutions or what not) begin trading pre-market as early as 6:30 am.

So, long story short - by the time most people see the market at 9:30 am a million things have already worked either in favor or against a stock/sector etc.