MARKET SAVVY : Savvy Confidential: A Briefing for Investors : Traders Opposed to Extended Hours
The notion of trading stocks in the evening may appeal to some individual investors. But on Wall Street, many pros think the trading day is long enough already.
A survey released Wednesday by the Security Traders Assn. shows that 83% of Wall Street traders are opposed to extended-hours trading--with almost the same percentage saying after-hours trading would probably force them to work longer hours.
Lee Korins, president and chief executive of the New York-based group, said many traders work for small firms that can’t afford to hire additional workers to staff late-evening or early-morning sessions.
“It’s more than just a couple of traders,” Korins said. “It’s all the people involved” in ancillary jobs such as trade processing.
The poll, conducted Sept. 8-17, queried 1,010 association members.
As for the biggest potential problem facing investors, almost 54% of the traders worried that extended-hours trading would not generate the critical mass of orders--known as liquidity--that is necessary for after-hours trading to succeed. Another 41% feared that stock prices would be volatile.
