London Stock Exchange sets 2027 date to launch overnight trading sessions

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) says that it will be opening a separate overnight trading platform called LSE 24 in the first half of 2027.

This will give retail and international investors a regulated way to trade London-listed products long after the main market closes.

The new venue is seen by some quarters as an answer to the crypto markets that operate around the clock. This is a feature that many crypto platforms have been pushing for years now, and traders have now grown used to it.

LSE 24 will run apart from the primary order book, which keeps its weekday hours of 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. London time. The overnight session will run from 5 p.m. to 7:50 a.m. However, there is a 30-minute pause between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. that enables the exchange to run end-of-day processing.

The structure is not exactly 24 hours, as there are pauses in trading between daytime trading and overnight trading.

What is going to be traded on LSE 24?

At launch, only exchange-traded products (ETPs) will be available on LSE 24.

Over 2,600 ETPs, including funds tracking UK and US equities, bonds, and commodities, are listed on the exchange.

Access to those listings will be extended through LSE 24.

According to LSE CEO Julia Hoggett, their decision not to include individual stock trading in overnight trading for now is because it would raise extra timing, and there are also regulatory questions that the exchange has not yet worked through.

ETPs are simpler to run in a night session because they spread exposure across many assets and can be quoted by market makers, pricing off the underlying markets.

Hoggett also sees LSE 24 as a response to retail appetite, especially from abroad. She said that investors want to use London, given its particular timezone, “to gain exposure to not only UK assets but global assets.”

She added that institutional players are increasingly interested in trading against that retail order flow.

The exchange is also building the venue for machines. Simon McQuoid-Mason, the LSE’s head of new product and market structure and equities, said that LSE 24 is being designed with agentic trading in mind, as firms lean on AI tools for portfolio analysis and trade execution.

Crypto set the expectation

LSE is not the only traditional exchange that is working to extend its trading hours. Some have been floating the idea for some time, with Nasdaq stating that it wants 24-hour weekday trading. Nasdaq is reportedly targeting the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory sign-off.

CME Group moved its crypto futures and options to a 24/7 schedule in May. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Cboe Global Markets have each outlined or begun extended-access plans.

In May, Euronext CEO Stéphane Boujnah said the operator would respond if demand for 24/7 trading grew large enough.

Crypto platforms have run continuously for years and have since pushed into products that look like securities. Digital-asset venues now offer tokenized equities and prediction contracts. Binance recently launched tokenized versions of stocks, featuring Nvidia, Amazon, Apple and Tesla, among others.

Tokenized stock monthly transfer volume is currently over $8 billion per RWA.xyz data.

For London, LSE 24 might be another means to introduce some spark into the market. The city has seen a long slump in initial public offerings, with several companies now preferring New York for their listings.

While LSE 24 is not a fix to that shortage of large flotations, it lets the exchange show it is reworking its infrastructure for a market where information and risk move at all hours.

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