Island to Expand Online Trading Hours : Securities: Overnight session, aimed at overseas investors, is expected to begin within three months.

In another step toward round-the-clock stock trading, the Island trading network plans to let investors trade from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. California time within three months, the president of the holding company that owns the No. 2 trading network said Tuesday.

The early morning hours are primarily for non-U.S. investors, said Edward Nicoll, president and chief operating officer of Datek Online Holdings Corp., which owns 85% of Island.

Island and Datek, the fourth-largest online broker, are open from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST. Regular market hours on the Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange are 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. PST. Both markets plan to lengthen their trading days no earlier than next year.

Nicoll said Island and Datek will next year consider extending evening trading until 7 p.m. PST. They’re also looking into a weekend session beginning 9:01 p.m. Saturday.

“People want the ability to control their lives,” said Nicoll, speaking at an online trading conference held by Bloomberg. Bloomberg is the parent of Bloomberg News and a competing electronic network called Tradebook.

E-Trade Group Inc. is on track to offer a session from 1 to 3:30 p.m. PST later this month, said Stephen Richards, senior vice president of the second-largest online broker. It will offer the service through Instinet Corp., which operates the oldest and busiest stock trading network.

MarketXT Inc., another trading network, introduced a 3 to 5 p.m. session last month.

Datek also said it introduced a feature that lets customers read stock prices in decimal increments instead of fractions. The securities industry plans to convert stock and options pricing to decimals next year.