Regular trading time is 9.30 am– 4 pm EST

Premarket trading hours are between 7 am – 9.30 am

After hours trading hours are from 4.00 am – 8.00 pm EST.

Before I suggest as to how to buy in the pre market you need to know what ECN’s are.ECN’s are known as Electronic communication networks.

What are ECN’S?

ECN’s are also known as the Alternative trading systems. They are huge communication networks that automatically match the buyers and the sellers with each other and make sure that like in regular trading the buyer and the seller match and trade executes.

Initially these were only open to market makers and broker–dealers and the institutional investors but now they are open to general public.

These ECN’s are linked to the NASDAQ via the Selectnet

The names of the ECN’s out there currently are

Instinet,

Island

Tradebook

ArchIpelago

REDIbook,

BRUT,

Attain,

Nextrade

MarkeXT

Most of the listed securities in NASDAQ are also traded on these ECN’s

There are risks involved with buying the shares after hours and pre market hours and these are that you will generally have less liquidity as the number of buyers and sellers for a particular stock will be less.

Also in general there will be a tough chance that you will as a individual investors will be able to compete with the people who are there and those are the professional mangers from mutual fund companies as well as institutional brokerages.

The benefit is that you may get a leg up on the competition as most companies announce their results after hours and you will be able to net in some gains. That said there is no sure shot way that you can predict the stock market opening the next day and hence be very careful when you buy stocks.

Most brokerage companies offer the extended hours trading facility so if you have a discount brokerage firm then they generally will offer the extended hours facility via one of the ECN’s I have listed above. Some may use the Instinet or some may use Archipelago.

So if you are signing up a new brokerage account then check if they have premarket and the after hours trading facility.

NASDAQ pre market

NASADQ has an indicator called the NASDAQ 100 pre market indicator which can tell how the market is moving in the pre market.

NASDAQ after hours

NASDAQ 100 after hours indicator will be able to tell you how the market doing in the after hours. It is similar to the NASDAQ 100 apart from the fact that it will help you invest in the after hours seeing the trend of the market.

Related posts:

1. NASDAQ 100 pre market indicator and the NASDAQ 100 after Hours Indicator
2. After hours stock quotes – Should you do after hours trading?
3. EMini Trading – E-mini S&P 500, E-mini NASDAQ and Emini Dow Jones