Extended Hours Trading: What Is It?

Extended Hours trading sessions allow you to enter limit orders on Fidelity.com before or after standard market hours. These stock limit orders are placed through Archipelago also known as (ARCA), the Electronic Communications Network or (ECN) that Fidelity participates in. All trades are executed at your normal online commission rate.

There are two Extended Hours Trading sessions: A Pre-Market Session and an After Hours session.

In the Pre-Market session Buy and Sell Limit orders can be placed from 7:30-9:15 a.m., Eastern time. However orders placed between 7:30 and 8 a.m.are sent to the ECN at 8 am in the order they were received. At 8 a.m., Fidelity sends your orders directly to the ECN up until 9:15 a.m., unless trading is halted. All unfilled orders placed during the Pre-Market Session expire and are cancelled at the end of the session.

The After Hours session follows much the same pattern but it's considerably longer. It begins at 4:00 p.m. and continues until 8 p.m. In the After Hours session buy and sell limit orders can only be placed and executed from 4-8 p.m., Eastern Time, unless trading is halted. All unfilled orders placed during the After Hours Session expire and are cancelled at the end of the session.

During Extended Hours you can only place orders through Fidelity.com.

It's important to remember that you can trade all NASDAQ and listed securities, but Pink Sheet and Bulletin Board securities are ineligible.

You can buy, buy to cover, sell long and sell short with some restrictions. Short sales are eligible for the entire Pre-Market session, but only for the first hour of the After Hours session.

There is no minimum order size, but 10,000 shares is the maximum order allowed.

Limit orders must have a time-in-force designation of Day, or Immediate or Cancel.

And finally, if trading is halted on a stock in its primary market, then trading of that stock will also be suspended on the ECN.

That's it! That's Extended Hours Trading on Fidelity.com.

To learn Why and When you might want to trade during Extend Hours, click on the "Why and When" tab in this module.

To learn how to trade during Extended hours, click on the "How To" tab in this module.