You seem to be a total newbie in stocks and markets issues. Take a look for example to this page and try to guess what the field "After Hours: 192.07 N/A (N/A) 4:18am ET" there might mean...: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_hours_trading 8 to 8 is a rule of thumb, with very little volume and wide spreads outside 9.30am to 4pm. Nothing on weekends, so it's far from 24h.
Thanks for the link, IMHO very informative. But it also writes this: "Extended hours trading on a day with a session that is not interfered with is from 4 a.m. - 9:30 and 3:59 - 8 p.m. EST." Ie. in total it is very well 23 to 24h trading. (actually it is 23.5 hours; 30 minutes are needed to reboot the machines etc.).
Since when does 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. equal to 23-24 hours!? By the way, options don't trade in extended hours.
Hmm. yes the calculation gives a total of only 16 hours/day, but my experience via the broker IB is 23.5 hours/day. There is only a half hour window where the system disconnects the client and doesn't allow login for 30 minutes (23:50 - 00:20 ET). As stated in the wiki article, Extended hours trading mostly happens on the ECNs, these electronic markets are independent of the regular NYSE/NASDAQ/AMEX/CME markets. Hmm. I can't confirm this. They trade together with the stocks. Having a stock trading, but its options not trading would be IMHO an impossible situation with far reaching consequences...
When you can log into your broker's platform has nothing to do with when the markets trade. IB offers international markets and FX so obviously you need to be able to log in at any time, 24h a day. US markets, on the other hand, do NOT trade 23 or 24h a day, well futures do, but not the stocks. And, I repeat, options do not trade in extended hours, they only trade from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST (index and etf options trade till 4:15). So it seems that you are the only one who is confused about when the US markets are open. By the way, CME, as in Chicago Mercantile Exchange, is a futures exchange and has nothing to do with stock trading.
Well, FYI: I live in Europe, 6 hours difference to US ET timezone... So, yes I can be wrong on the given times, sorrry.
It doesn't matter where you live (on a side note, I also live in Europe). Just shift all the hours I have listed by 6 hours forward and you get your local times.
And here's another thought. In your other thread you say that you have been paper trading. So how the heck can you possibly make any of the statements at the start of this thread about the market makers ripping you off if you haven't even placed a single real trade!?