Money never sleeps on Wall Street. Or at least that’s what Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gekko tells us in the Hollywood version of Wall Street.
And now the amateur traders on all the other streets will get the opportunity for their own stock-market-induced insomnia: Robinhood has introduced 24-hour trading in 43 of the most active US exchange-traded funds and individual companies such as Tesla, Amazon and Apple. Orders now can be placed and executed anytime from 8 p.m. New York time on Sunday to 8 p.m. on Friday. Robinhood joins Interactive Brokers Group, which recently introduced overnight trading of 79 stocks and ETFs, and other brokerages offering round-the-clock trading only of popular ETFs.
Quick, to the day-trader message boards on Reddit for some reaction from the target audience! “Why would anyone want this?” asks one poster. “Because gamblers are gonna gamble,” responds another. “Nice! I can save gas from driving to the casino,” adds a third. Or as Vlad Tenev, the head of Robinhood, put it on an earnings call: “It allows our customers to better manage their risk and take advantage of opportunities, no matter what time of day they arise.”
