Cboe has pulled the August 17 start date for extended-hours trading on Nvidia, Tesla, Apple and 18 other heavily traded stock options, without setting a replacement. The exchange gave no reason for the second delay, while rival Nasdaq MRX already holds SEC approval for a similar session.
The exchange has postponed, for a second time, the launch of extended-hours trading in options on Nvidia, Tesla, Apple and other widely traded stocks. Until Cboe sets a new date, traders cannot use the planned pre-market session to trade listed options on those names before Wall Street opens, delaying an exchange-based source of implied volatility and options flow during the equity premarket.
Launch Date Changes to "TBD"
Cboe Options Exchange (C1) had already pushed the launch once, from an initial July 13 target to August 17. In an August 10 schedule update, the exchange changed the start date to "TBD," removed the dates for two planned customer weekend tests, and said another notice would precede the launch, without giving a reason.
The planned Global Trading Hours session would run from 7:30 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. Eastern Time, ahead of regular trading from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with a separate Curb session extending to 4:15 p.m. Cboe's anticipated list holds 21 symbols, including AAPL, AMD, AMZN, NVDA, TSLA and TSM, though the exchange may still change the designated classes. Only limit orders would be accepted during the extended sessions; market, stop and stop-limit orders would be rejected, and trades placed then would not count toward the daily high or low.
Analyst Sees an Early Read on Positioning
Maksymilian Bączkowski, an editor at Comparic.pl who also works at AI Investments as a senior quantitative analyst, told FinanceMagnates.com exclusively: "Initially, I would view this market primarily as an additional source of information." He said implied volatility, skew and flow from the session could help traders assess premarket positioning. But lower liquidity and wider spreads would make individual transactions harder to interpret, and the session should not initially be treated as equivalent to regular trading, he added.
Other Exchanges Plan Similar Windows
Nasdaq MRX received SEC approval on June 26 for extended sessions covering eligible equity options plus its NDX, NDXP and XND index options, running the same 7:30–9:25 a.m. and 4:00–4:15 p.m. windows. Cboe plans to route orders to better-priced markets during its session, while Nasdaq MRX would not route during its own, per SIFMA. NYSE American filed its own extended-hours proposal on June 16, and the SEC extended its review period on July 30, leaving that application pending.
The SEC approved Cboe's underlying rule change on May 28, letting Cboe pick up to 100 classes meeting volume and market-cap tests: each must average at least 150,000 contracts a day over the prior six months, with the underlying stock carrying a market cap of at least $50 billion and average daily volume of at least 10 million shares. As of Monday, C1's reference file still listed only SPX, VIX, XSP and RUT as eligible.
Source: Finance Magnates
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
