Cboe Pushes for After-Hours Stock Options Trading
Published Date: 12/31/2025
Notice
Summary
Cboe Exchange wants to let people trade certain multi-listed stock options for longer hours, beyond the usual trading times. The SEC is now deciding if this rule change is a good idea, which could affect traders and investors by giving them more chances to buy or sell options. The decision will come by January 1, 2026, and could change how and when money moves in the options market.
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 3 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
Extended trading windows for equity options
Cboe proposes allowing certain multi-listed equity options to trade Monday–Friday before regular hours from 7:30 a.m. to 9:25 a.m., and for designated equity options that are not ETF/ETN/Index Portfolio/Trust receipts to trade after regular hours from 4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. FLEX options with the same underlying would also be eligible. This change would give traders and investors more chances to buy or sell options during those times.
Which option classes may trade (eligibility limits)
The Exchange may designate up to 100 actively-traded multi-listed equity option classes for the proposed extended sessions if each meets minimum criteria: average daily option volume of 150,000 contracts, underlying equity market capitalization of $50 billion, and underlying average daily trading volume of 10 million shares. There is a waiver for new IPOs whose offering price implies at least $3 billion market cap allowing trading starting on or after the second business day following the IPO; any waived classes count toward the 100-class limit.
Existing GTH-traded options don't count toward cap
The proposal permits the Exchange to designate any equity option that is traded on another exchange during Global Trading Hours (GTH) or any other non-RTH session as eligible for Cboe's proposed extended sessions, and such options would not be included in the 100-class limit. This allows additional already-GTH-traded option classes to be included without using a slot of the 100-class cap.
Operational rules for equity extended sessions
The Exchange proposes that equity Global Trading Hours (GTH) would not occur on holidays, trading of equity options in GTH would be subject to the same trading halt rules as RTH (generally halting when the underlying security is halted), and the queuing period for equity options in GTH would begin at 7:15 a.m. (15 minutes before the 7:30 a.m. session start). The opening rotation triggers for GTH equity options would duplicate existing RTH opening rotation processing.
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