How can shares change in price after trading ends if noone is trading them?

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How can shares change in price after trading ends if noone is trading them?

In: Economics

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There is no stop in stock trading. It is only specific markets which stop, not the concept of stock trading. You can compare it to a farmers market where every Saturday the farmers will come to town and sell their goods so there is a lot of tight competition. However farmers do not stop selling their goods just because the farmers market is closed, you can still go to a farm and buy things from them and you can even haggle on the prices. There is also grocers buying goods from the farmers and selling them to consumers all week. A stock market is similar in that the different stock exchanges have fixed opening times and this is where you see most trades and most competition. However there is still a healthy market for stocks after the stock exchange have closed and before it opens. Brokers will trade between themselves and offer trades to their customers even if the markets are closed. So when you see stock prices being reported even though the stock markets are closed the price comes from a different source which is still doing trades outside of the stock exchange.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I think that commodity markets close in one place but open elsewhere. So they stop trading at 7pm in America, but in Hong Kong they are open.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Commodities are traded world-wide and there is always an open market.

When it comes to shares of very big companies, some of them are listed on several different markets and this can be the reason.

Also, there is no law banning people from exchanging shares between them, if they agree on a price, without a broker. There is the official market where trading happens according to a very strict set of rules and it has official opening hours. But there are also many unregulated markets – ECNs being the most common – that will quote a price during off-hours. Generally, they are much more volatile and they are considered riskier. Usually the opening price in the morning will account for what happened overnight. Sometimes, a panic that happened during the night trading will dissipate in the morning, sometimes not.