I just read something that makes a lot of sense when I think about it. The main stock exchanges in the United States are moving pieces to enable 24/7 trading, and honestly, this changes the entire game for who wins and who loses in the markets.

Currently, when markets close at 4 p.m. ET, something interesting happens. Liquidity disappears, spreads widen, and basically only a few players are still trading. According to Mati Greenspan from Quantum Economics, brokers take advantage of this exactly: when the market reopens after a weekend or major event, they set the first tradable price. And yes, many times they do this deliberately to trigger their clients’ stop-loss orders. That is, they close positions at a loss while the broker makes money trading against the client.

The SEC and FINRA have already fined firms for this. In 2025, they resolved charges related to manipulation schemes that lasted for years, with deceptive orders to move prices. They also fined Velox Clearing for failing to detect layering and spoofing. Academic research from UC Berkeley and Rochester confirms that discovering prices outside regular trading hours is much less efficient. Less volume, less liquidity, more exaggerated volatility.

Now, here’s the interesting part. If markets operate 24/7, that ends. Retail traders can finally react to news in real time instead of being trapped waiting for the market to open. That weekend gap that brokers have exploited for years disappears.

We are already seeing this in action. Hyperliquid, the decentralized exchange that operates 24/7, has experienced a huge boom. Traders can bet on traditional assets like oil and gold during weekends. The weekly derivatives volume exceeded $50 billion. That’s no coincidence; it’s because people want to trade whenever they want, without waiting for traditional markets to open.

NYSE, Nasdaq, CME, and Cboe are all looking to implement this. Nasdaq announced similar plans in December, CME plans 24/7 cryptocurrency futures in 2026, Cboe has already expanded index options for 24/5 trading. If this materializes, the biggest winners will be traders. The losers will be intermediaries who have made money for years precisely when traders couldn’t operate.

But it’s not that simple either. In less liquid markets, even with more trading hours, coordination among brokers is still possible. The power to set prices during low-activity sessions is real. However, having more traders participating simultaneously makes manipulation much harder. Oversight also becomes more constant.

What’s clear is that 24/7 markets reduce the advantage of those who control liquidity. Traders can react without being at the mercy of intermediaries. That’s a significant change in how we operate.