With its initiative, the Frankfurt stock exchange operator is reacting to a trend in the USA. If there is enough demand, an expansion of the supply is also conceivable.
Deutsche Börse enables trading in DAX shares outside of regular hours via its subsidiary 360X using a price query procedure.
The calculation of the DAX index remains limited to the regular trading hours from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., even with the new offer.
In the USA, five official exchanges will start so-called 24/5 trading from December.
Deutsche Börse is considering expanding the 24/7 offering to include exchange-traded index funds (ETFs) if there is enough demand.
Frankfurt/New York. Deutsche Börse now offers trading in DAX shares around the clock, seven days a week. This makes the company “the first European financial market infrastructure that enables a 24/7 offer for classic blue chips,” said Deutsche Börse manager Eric Leupold on Tuesday.
Outside of regular trading hours and on weekends, Dax shares can now be traded via the Deutsche Börse subsidiary 360X. Customers can request a price from active traders (market makers) there during the night and on weekends if they want to trade a DAX share (Request for Quote, RfQ for short).
Unlike the electronic trading system Xetra, there is no continuous trading in which buy and sell orders from all participants come together. The German leading index Dax is still only calculated between the core trading hours of 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Private customers can already trade stocks around the clock through many banks and brokers. Outside trading hours, banks often record such transactions on their own books. Alternatively, they can conduct trades via other platforms such as OTC Markets.
This is now also possible via the Deutsche Börse. The company wants to help increase liquidity in trading outside of core trading hours. If this succeeds, customers could tend to get slightly better buying and selling prices.
“By making the DAX 40 stocks tradable on 360X, we securely combine deep, regulated liquidity pools with the flexibility of around-the-clock availability,” said Deutsche Börse manager Carlo Kölzer. “This allows our clients to manage risk wherever global markets move,” he added.
With the new offer, Deutsche Börse is reacting to a development in the USA, where investors have long been able to trade securities outside of official stock exchange hours. Many at the stock exchange operator in Hesse assume that this trend will sooner or later spread to Europe.
One reason for this is that many crypto investors who are used to trading around the clock, seven days a week, known as “24/7”, have also been investing more in classic securities for some time now. In addition, the rise of neobanks such as Trade Republic or Revolut has led to more customers investing in securities - even outside of core stock market hours.
Deutsche Börse therefore introduced extended trading hours for private investors on Xetra in December 2025. Since then, they can trade there from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. With the new offer, trading hours will now be extended to the maximum. “This is an important step towards a European market infrastructure that is available around the clock,” said Deutsche Börse.
Many within the group see the new offer as a first step. If demand is great enough, Deutsche Börse could expand the offering and, for example, also offer 24/7 trading in popular exchange-traded index funds (ETFs) via 360X.
In the medium to long term, an extension of Xetra trading hours is also conceivable. However, this would involve enormous technical effort and, according to company circles, is currently not planned.
In the USA, the alternative trading platform Blue Ocean laid the foundation for around-the-clock trading ten years ago by opening night trading for US stocks. As a result, more and more brokers in the USA expanded their offering to trade certain securities during the week without any time limits. Today, investors can also buy and sell securities in the middle of the night at brokers such as Interactive Brokers or Charles Schwab.
From December onwards, official stock exchanges in the USA will also want to trade stocks from Sunday to Friday evening, which should give a big boost to buying and selling. This results in advantages for investors, such as greater price transparency. The expected higher liquidity on the official stock exchanges is also likely to be reflected in bid-ask spreads that are more favorable for investors, i.e. a smaller difference between the highest buy bid and the lowest sell offer.
Around two years ago, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted approval for this so-called 24/5 trading to an exchange created specifically for this purpose, which, according to estimates, marked the breakthrough for continuous trading. Five US stock exchanges have now received the green light for expanded trading: These include the Nasdaq, the electronic trading platform Cboe EDGX, the Nyse Arca for ETF trading, 24X and the Members Exchange (MEMX).
The starting signal for expanded trading will be on December 6th. Officially, trading only takes place for 23 hours per day over the five days. There will be a break for technical maintenance work between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. to ensure trading.
However, the traditional opening hours of US stock exchanges from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time remain relevant for the opening and closing prices of securities and indices. And investors are still unable to trade on an official stock exchange at the weekend. But there are alternatives here too: At the end of September, Robinhood announced that it would extend its trading hours for selected US stocks to include the weekend.
