American stock market information, opening hours (2025)

This article will discuss the functioning of the American stock market. Why is the American stock market the subject of this article, and not, say, the French or Croatian? Because it is the alpha and omega in the financial world, the capitalization of the US stock markets accounts for approximately 60% of the total capitalization of the world's stock markets (Market capitalization by country).

Moreover, stock market culture as we know it today originates mostly from America, but its roots go back to a time when the country did not even exist.

📊A brief history of the stock market

The stock exchange developed from the marketplaces of medieval fairs, where goods changed hands. Since there were no computer networks or even electricity at that time, buyers and sellers had to be brought together in one place, so fairs were typically held in larger cities. However, with the increase in the flow of goods and money, this became so large that it was no longer possible to exchange goods smoothly, so substitutes began to be used. The first stock exchange palace was built in Antwerp in 1531, but stock exchange life really came to fruition in Amsterdam in the 1600s, with the trading of shares of the Dutch East India and West India Company. Towards the end of the 17th century, the goods market and the stock exchange split into two.

☝🏻The very first dividend-paying stock was issued by the Dutch East India Company in 1605, but the dividend was paid in pepper, not money. 

The first bubble mania broke out in the 1630s, the Dutch Tulip Mania, where tulip bulbs were the commodity whose value increased twelvefold in 3 months. At the peak of the craze, a bulb called a Switzer was worth 5000 guilders, which at the time was enough to buy a fancy apartment in the center of Amsterdam.

The first bearer shares, freely tradable, were issued in France in the 1720s, while bonds were around another hundred years away. The mortgage deed was a Prussian invention, with historians saying that Frederick the Great first authorized its issuance in 1769. The rise in share trading was helped by the advent of the railways in the early 1800s, as most companies were registered as joint-stock companies, which sparked another mania in England. This caused such a crisis that a law called the “Bubble Act” was passed, banning the establishment of joint-stock companies in the United Kingdom for 100 years, with some exceptions.

The dawn of technology on the stock market

Let's jump forward a little over a century and remember the name of Guglielmo Marconi, who was Tesla's assistant and invented the radio, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1909. The other important invention from the point of view of the development of the stock market is the telegraph, which was introduced by Samuel Morse in 1838, but by the end of the 19th century it was already commonly used for data transmission on the stock markets, thus accelerating the flow of news and trading. The situation is very well presented in the work of Edwin Lefévre (Edwin Lefévre: Notes of a Speculator), a very entertaining and easy read.

In the 1960s, DARPA, a division of the US Department of Defense, began experimenting with distributed, less vulnerable computer networks, which can be considered the predecessor of the Internet. The first email was sent on it in 1972, the military segment was separated from it in 1983, thus paving the way for mass use, and the rest, as they say, is now history. With the spread of the internet, more and more people have joined online brokerage platforms. Buying and selling securities has slowly become a part of everyday life, and today hundreds of millions of average people worldwide participate in trading.

🗽The American stock market today

Since technology has taken over everything, machines and automated systems practically do the majority of trading via the internet. The floor, where brokers run around in the movies and wave small papers, has practically disappeared, we do everything sitting in front of our computers, glued to our monitors. It couldn't be any other way, since the turnover of the New York Stock Exchange alone exceeds 20 trillion dollars a year (NYSE), and the total value of companies listed on the NYSE is $26 trillion (Companies listed on NYSE). With these figures, it is the largest stock exchange in the world, and when we use the word American stock exchange in general, we usually think of the New York stock exchange. It would be impossible to trade this volume without machines, and a significant portion of the turnover is generated by so-called high-frequency trading.

It should also be remembered that the mammoth companies that are now among the largest in terms of market capitalization did not exist 40-50 years ago, just think of Google, Amazon or Tesla. These stocks typically enjoy extra popularity, so further growth in total turnover is expected in the near future.

Basically, we use the word stock exchange in general, to refer to all the stock exchanges in the world, but in America alone, there are countless stock exchanges that list stocks. When you see a stock ticker, it's usually written like this: NYSE:GIS. This means that General Mills' stock is listed on the NYSE, or the New York Stock Exchange, which is the New York Stock Exchange. Of course, there are stock exchanges in countless other big cities, like Chicago, and the other very well-known exchange is the NASDAQ, which lists technology stocks.

🇺🇸📄ADRs on the American stock exchange

Since the American securities market has the largest weight globally, so-called ADR securities are also registered on the American market (American Depository Receipts). These are basically American versions of stocks traded on foreign exchanges. A good example of this is Unilever (UL), but I could also mention the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, which can be found under both the Danish (NOVC) and American tickers (NVO). I wrote more about the topic and the process of buying shares in a previous article: Step-by-step process of buying shares

Wall Street in New York

An iconic place, a street in New York City in southern Manhattan, approximately 600 meters long, and a symbol of the economic and financial power of the USA, the center of the financial sector. Here is the stock exchange building at 11 Wall Street, which was added to the original building on Broad Street in 1922. The entrance is also on Broad Street, but Wall Street has remained in the public consciousness as a symbol of the American stock exchange. It got its name from the Dutch words De Waal Straat, because the Dutch built a protective wall next to the street in 1653.

The Buttonwood Convention of 1792 was signed on Wall Street, which later formed the basis for the city's stock exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange dates its origins from there. Fun fact: the street is now lined with skyscrapers, including the 283-meter-high Trump Building, which was briefly the tallest building in the world.

Stock market indices of the US stock market

There are countless stock market indices in the world, usually several indices are created for a given country's market. For example, we wrote an article about the largest German index (DAX index). Of course, the most well-known of these are the American indices, they are followed the most by the press, and what happens here usually affects other stock markets around the world and thus the indices as well.

• 🇺🇸US stock market index
• 📈DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average, USA): one of the oldest American stock market indices with a century-long history, which originally included 12 companies, today this number is 30.
• 📈S&P 500 (Standard&Poor's 500, USA): the most frequently cited US stock market index, comprising more than 500 US stocks. The data found here often serves as a general reference point for investors.
• 📈NASDAQ (USA): NASDAQ is an abbreviation for the stock exchange of American technology companies, and its index, the NASDAQ Composite. It was created in 1971 for companies that "didn't fit" into a formal stock exchange, which at that time were still typically technology companies. Today, not only stocks can be traded on it, but also ETFs, derivatives, and commodity products. Investopedia has a great video about how it works (NASDAQ).

Tracking stock indices also comes with a heat map, which is published by most stock selection sites. This lists the largest stocks based on market capitalization, marked green if they are rising and red if they are falling, and grayed out if there is no movement compared to the previous day's closing price. This way, you can see at a glance which individual stock is moving where, and you don't have to look at the aggregate price chart, since the price of the indices only provides aggregate information about the stocks. I wrote a separate article about stock indices (Meaning and use of stock market indices), where I dealt much more in-depth with their operation and their deceptiveness.

⭐📊Most popular US stocks

Just because something is popular doesn't mean much. What makes a stock popular in the US stock market, and how do you even determine that? Back in college, one of my professors put it bluntly that you can only consider something a brand if it's advertised. In other words, what's in the public consciousness inevitably becomes famous, or in a negative case, infamous. And the "housewife" trade works exactly like this: when people hear on the news that they should buy oil stocks, they run and buy them.

Characteristics of popular stocks

In other words, just because something is popular and you read a lot about it, doesn't mean it's a good stock. Why is a stock talked about a lot in the press? Because:

• well-known brand, of public interest: Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL)
• It's something new, something innovative, and the company is well-known: Google (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN)
• its leader is a person of character who can move the news, has some kind of vision, or is constantly in the public consciousness for some reason. Steve Jobs was one of them, and now we can mention the names of Elon Musk, Bill Gates or even Jeff Bezos. The companies in order: Apple (AAPL), Tesla (TSLA), Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN)
• It has achieved brutally high returns in the past, which would have been nice to capitalize on
• It possesses disruptive, market-changing technology: space travel, electric cars, hydrogen propulsion, artificial intelligence, robotics, etc.

Of course, these characteristics tend to occur together, so typically overvalued growth or technology stocks tend to fall into this category. Simply because there's nothing to write home about when it comes to a boring, stable company. Did you know that Procter & Gamble has been paying a dividend since 1989 (PG)? How exciting, right? Well, it's not, in fact, it's pretty boring, but a lot of people are looking for these companies. Others are looking for the visions, or the excitement of stock market trading.

Another solution is needed

Since there is no uniform definition of what makes a stock good or popular, the solution must be sought elsewhere. The easiest way is to look at which stocks had the most turnover on the stock exchange. That's fine, but when? Because it always changes, at one time NVIDIA was the most popular, before that Microsoft or Apple. Which stock exchange do we take as a basis? The world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization is the NYSE, but NASDAQ has a higher turnover. In other words, whether a stock is popular depends solely on the criteria around which we define it.

For the sake of example, let's take June 2025 and the New York Stock Exchange as a basis, then the following Top 8 list would be created:

📝 Note: data shows the average daily stock turnover for the last three months, expressed in US dollars (USD).

So are these good stocks now, you might ask? Since I own only one stock from this list, I am not aware of the fundamental background of the companies, I have not done any investment analysis on them. In other words, I can only say what you can read in the press: they are cool, trendy, their price has increased significantly. In many cases, stock market investors do make decisions based on this, but you should not do it, unless you want to base your decisions on the Greater Fool principle. If you don't feel like it, read up on what the term means as homework.

US stock market opening hours

You can't trade on the US stock exchange all the time. Just like a store, the NYSE, NASDAQ and every other stock exchange have opening hours, which are determined by US time. Okay, but which ones, because the US is so big that it doesn't fit into one time zone. Officially, the NYSE and NASDAQ are open from 9:30 AM to 16:00 PM, Eastern Time, which is also called the New York time zone, on weekdays, which has to be converted to the Central European Time Zone, or CEST, in Europe, for example. This is according to UTC+2 time - which is roughly Western and Central Europe - as follows:

• stock market opening: 15:30
• stock exchange closing: 22:00

The following website has a nice countdown timer on the page that shows the time remaining until closing: NYSE opening hours. You can also trade for 4 hours before and after the market opens, this is the pre and post market period, but not all brokers allow you to quote prices here. According to CEST time, these four-hour periods are as follows:

• Start of the pre-market opening period: 11:30
• End of the period after market opening: 02:00

📅What days are the US stock market closed?

There are days when the American stock market is closed. It is not difficult to guess that these coincide with the famous holidays observed in the United States of America. The beauty of the matter is that the dates of several holidays change from year to year, which means that you have to check at the beginning of each year what day falls on which day in the next 12 months. Although the stock market is closed due to a holiday, it is not necessarily only on the day of the holiday, but also, for example, does not open on the preceding Friday or the following Monday. Fortunately, there are countless sites to check this, but the easiest is to check the NYSE's own website (NYSE.com). Obviously, other stock exchanges are closed due to local holidays, so if you want to trade on the Malaysian market, you will have to check which days it is open and which are not. The holidays for the US stock exchange are as follows:

• New Year's Day
• Martin Luther King Day
• Washington's Birthday
• Good Friday (Good Friday)
• Memorial Day (Memorial Day)
• Independence Day (Independence Day)
• Labor Day (Labor Day)
• Thanksgiving Day (Thanksgiving Day)
• Christmas (Christmas Day)

Although trading is suspended on the same holidays every year, the exact dates of the holidays change each year, so you can see them all 3 years in advance in the table below.

There are also special cases, e.g. if a holiday falls on a Saturday, the preceding Friday or the following Monday is considered a holiday, Marketbeat has a good article about this (Stock Market Holidays).

🔍American stock market news, prices

There's always something going on in the US stock market, and in the rest of the world in general. The government announces something, a company splits, a company buys another, a new quarterly report comes out, someone raises their dividend, the central bank announces an interest rate cut, and so on. Fortunately, publicly traded companies are required to file major changes with the SEC, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, so that investors can be informed.

The SEC's central database is Edgar (Edgar), from which shareholders can get information. It's a pretty chaotic site, and the various "K" reports are particularly difficult to read. To make this easier to process, I've come up with several things that make it easier to navigate. But first, let's look at what recurring events on the stock market are worth paying attention to:

• Weekly employment data: prices move quite often.
• Quarterly reports (Q reports): they almost always move the price, especially if the difference compared to expectations is large.
• Acquisition (M&A), spin-off: the market generally prices acquisitions well, so the price movement can often be used to see how the acquisitions are received.
• Dividend announcements: everyone likes to get extra money, and no one likes to have their dividend cut.
• Other macro data, such as inflation, base rate increases, GDP forecasts, etc.: many people watch it, and it can often be used to infer future events.

Generally, long-term investors are less affected by the above announcements, because short-term events rarely affect the return of a stock held for 10-20 years. Dividend investors, on the other hand, often pick up their heads when a major drop occurs, as this can significantly increase the dividend yield, thus providing good entry points. In reality, of course, fear and greed are what drive the stock market the most, so you shouldn't give too much thought to random news, especially when half of the analysts say A and the other half say B. You have to rely on the facts, the rest is just garnish and speculation.

How to filter through US stock market data

There is a brutal amount of data coming in every day regarding the American stock market, so I have to filter it. What is it that I don't read or don't take seriously at all? News, analyses, especially when articles with contradictory content are constantly appearing. Rumors, tips, ideas, speculation, these are unnecessary, it's all speculative. What is it that I pay attention to? The factual reports, and the officially submitted data.

I use different services for this because I don't have endless time to read articles and other content. I've put together a list that might help you navigate:

• Edgar database, the SEC website: all official data is included here, quarterly reports, bond issuance, etc. It's a difficult read, I don't like to skim through these either, but I have to
• Finchat.io: this is a stock filter site that I use to filter data, and its monthly fee is relatively low. Since it lists quarterly reports and their transcripts, I don't have to look elsewhere.
• Yahoo Finance, Earnings Calendar: shows upcoming quarterly reports in a calendar
• iO Charts: stock search page, has a stock filter (stock screener), handles cryptos and has unique charts for stocks.

📌In practice: This is my sixth year as a practicing equity investor, but I have invested in other instruments before that, and my experience is that over the years you tend to simplify everything. I look at very little macro data because it is unnecessary for investments, and in a 10-20 year time frame it doesn't matter what happens in a quarter. However, I still use stock picker sites and read quarterly reports. Simply because it is not in the noise category. I also recommend the various Substack channels for stock-specific things (Substacks). This is more than enough, there is absolutely no need to overthink it, perseverance is much more important in the long run than constant compulsive action.

iO Charts shows everything

iO Chartswas created to provide you with data and insights for analysis and foresight into the future. Feel free to use the screener, follow the prices of your favorite companies. You can also use it as a portfolio manager, it manages not only stocks, but also cryptocurrencies. In fact, we have also included unique charts for you, which can help you gain even more information related to certain companies:

• there are unique Tesla (TSLA) graphs that show the number of cars delivered by quarter, the total capacity of installed energy storage systems, and we have even listed the environmental quotas for you.
• Pfizer (Pfe) got some nice charts to see how the vaccine business has taken off
• we also show that AT&T (T) how he threw bundles of dollars into the fireplace with a pitchfork when he bought DirecTV, and how their subscribers have been leaking out ever since

So I encourage everyone to use our stock selection service (Individual shares) or our stock filter (stock screener), or read the constantly updated blog(iO Charts blog).

Summary

The American stock market is the largest in the world, it is where most securities are traded, and the whole world keeps its eyes on it. It is no coincidence that it is the home of the largest capitalization and most famous companies. That is why it is worth knowing which indexes will help you track their performance, when they open and close, and what are the current trending news.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the stock market?

A stock exchange is an organized market where stocks, bonds, commodities, and other financial instruments are traded under a regulated framework. Its purpose is to bring investors and issuers together, providing transparent pricing and liquidity for market participants.

New York Stock Exchange Opening

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE and Nasdaq) officially opens Monday through Friday at 09:30 a.m. Eastern Time and closes at 16:00 p.m., which is between 15:30 p.m. and 22:00 p.m. Central and Western European Time. This period is called normal trading hours, but there are also pre-market and after-hours periods during which trading can still be done through certain brokerage firms, but with lower liquidity and higher risk. The exchanges are closed on weekends and U.S. public holidays.

The US stock market opening time actually refers not only to the New York Stock Exchange, but also to the Chicago Stock Exchange, as all US stock exchanges open at the same time. The Forex market is open 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday, with trading hours staggered based on the world's major financial centers. The market opens on Sunday evening at 23:00 PM (Sydney) and closes on Friday evening at 22:00 PM (New York).

The Forex market (foreign exchange market) is technically not a classic stock exchange, as it does not have a central trading venue like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Instead, it is a decentralized, global network where trading is mainly done through banks, brokers, and electronic platforms. As such, it is not a “stock exchange” in the strict sense of the word, but it functions similarly and is one of the most important segments of the financial markets.

Nasdaq opening hours

The Nasdaq stock exchange, which mainly trades stocks of technology companies, is open Monday through Friday from 09:30 a.m. to 16:00 p.m. Eastern Time, which is 15:30 p.m. to 22:00 p.m. Central and Western European Time. This is the so-called normal trading period. There is also a pre-market and after-hours market, where trading is possible outside of official opening hours through certain brokers, although there is less volume and price fluctuations. Nasdaq is closed on weekends and American holidays.

European stock exchange opening hours

European stock exchanges, such as the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Xetra), the Euronext in Paris, the Borsa Italiana in Milan or the London Stock Exchange, generally operate according to similar opening hours. Most European markets are open from Monday to Friday, Central European Time (CET/CEST), from 9:00 to 17:30. The exception to this is the London Stock Exchange, which operates from 8:00 to 16:30 UK time, which can be one hour off the continental time zone in summer and winter.

These exchanges are closed on weekends and on national holidays in some countries. Although European markets do not have formal pre- and post-market trading hours like American exchanges, some stocks can be traded during extended hours through certain brokerage firms, but with less volume and liquidity.

What is the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC?

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the financial regulatory agency of the United States federal government, responsible for protecting investors, maintaining the integrity of capital markets, and preventing market abuse, fraud, and insider trading.

The SEC was established in 1934 following the Great Depression and has since overseen the operations of publicly traded companies in the United States, their disclosure obligations (e.g. annual reports, quarterly reports), and both on- and off-exchange securities trading. The SEC plays a key role in ensuring that markets are transparent, regulated, and reliable.

Which broker should I choose to buy shares?

There are several aspects to consider when choosing a broker - we will write a complete article about this - but I would like to highlight a few that are worth considering:

• size, reliability: The bigger a broker, the safer it is. Those with a banking background – Erste, K&H, Charles Schwab, etc. – are even better, and well-known brokers are typically more reliable.
• expenditures: Brokers operate with various costs, such as the account management fee, the portfolio fee - which is the worst cost -, the purchase/sale fee and the currency exchange cost (if USD is not deposited in the brokerage account)
• Availability of instruments: It doesn't matter which broker has which market available, or whether they add the given instrument upon request and how quickly.
• account type: cash or margin account, the latter can only be used for options. For Hungarian tax residents, having a TBSZ account is important, but citizens of other countries also have special options – such as the American 401K retirement savings account – which are either supported by the broker or not.
• surface: is one of the most underrated aspects, and it can be a real pain. Anyone who had an account with Random Capital, a now-defunct Hungarian broker, knows what it's like to work on a platform left over from the 90s. Erste's system is lousy slow, Interactive Brokers requires a flight test, and LightYear believes in simple but modern solutions.

Based on the above, I recommend the Interactive Brokers account because:

• the world's largest broker with a strong background
• a few million instruments are available on it, and shares listed on multiple markets – e.g. both the original and the ADR – of a single share are often available
• Interactive Brokers a discount broker, they have the lowest prices on the market
• you can link your Wise account to them, from which you can quickly transfer money
• Morningstar's analyses are available for free under the fundamental explorer (good for analysis)
• EVA framework data is available under fundamental explorer (useful for analysis)
• they have both cash and margin accounts, Hungarian citizens can open a TBSZ
• you can use three types of interfaces: there is a web and PC client and a phone application

Legal and liability statement (aka. disclaimer): My articles contain personal opinions and are written solely for my own entertainment and that of my readers. iO ChartsThe articles published on do NOT in any way exhaust the topic of investment advice. I have never wanted, do not want and am unlikely to provide such in the future. What is described here is for informational purposes only and should NOT be construed as an offer. The expression of opinion is NOT in any way considered a guarantee to sell or buy financial instruments. You are SOLELY responsible for the decisions you make, and no one else, including me, assumes the risk.