Cboe Options: 24 Stocks, 5 ETFs Get Extended Hours Oct. 19

Cboe Global Markets will open options trading on 24 individual stocks and five exchange-traded funds before the opening bell and after the closing bell starting Monday, October 19, 2026. Cboe will offer trading on 24 of the most actively traded companies and five ETFs between 7:30 a.m. and 9:25 a.m. ET and 4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET.

What changes on Monday

Extended hours options trading begins at 7:30 a.m. ET on Monday, October 19, for a select set of stocks and exchange-traded funds. The early session runs through 9:25 a.m. ET, when there is a five-minute pause before the opening bell. Trading also lasts an additional 15 minutes until 4:15 p.m. The five ETFs getting the new sessions are the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM), SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), and the State Street Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF). On the stock side, the list, which will be updated twice a year, starts with the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks, several big-tech giants, including Oracle and Micron, as well as popular retail-trading names like Robinhood, Nokia and others. Brokers including TradeStation and Robinhood Markets have said they'll offer trading during the sessions.

Cboe's Global Head of Derivatives, Rob Hocking, tied the move to broader demand for "the power of optionality and what it can do for their portfolios," according to the exchange's comments to CNBC.

The numbers behind the expansion

Why the rollout took five months longer than planned

Cboe to launch pre- and post-market trading sessions for select equity options, beginning July 13, 2026 was the plan Cboe announced in May, after Cboe Options Exchange plans to begin offering the extended trading hours on July 13, 2026, subject to SEC approval of a related rule filing. That second approval — covering the Options Clearing Corp., which clears every listed options trade in the U.S. — did not arrive in time for the July date. CNBC's October 15 report, echoed by other outlets, notes that after first receiving approval by the SEC in May, regulators have now given the green light to the exchange and the Options Clearing Corp. to offer trading on 24 of the most actively traded companies and five exchange-traded funds, putting the actual start roughly three months behind the original target.

The scope also grew in the interim. Back in May, based on the proposed criteria, Cboe anticipates approximately 20 names to be available for trading at launch, including Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, Palantir, Broadcom and AMD, with no mention of ETFs. The version launching this month covers 24 stocks plus five ETFs — a larger list than the exchange first described, though Cboe has not published a detailed explanation of which names were added since May. Cboe's Head of U.S. Derivatives, Meaghan Dugan, described the phased approach as "a measured approach to help ensure market safeguards and investor protections remain in place," according to Investing.com's report on the May announcement.

What the eligibility rules and order restrictions mean for traders

Not every optionable stock will qualify. To be eligible for the extended sessions, equity options must have an average daily volume of 150,000 contracts or higher for the preceding six months, an underlying equity market capitalization of $50 billion or higher, and an underlying equity average daily trading volume of 10 million shares or higher. Those thresholds are designed to limit the new sessions to names that already trade heavily, since while underlying equity and options liquidity may be less robust during pre- and post-regular trading hour sessions, Cboe was mindful to target only the most actively-traded and most liquid symbols for the expanded options hours. Liquidity in any extended session is still typically thinner than during regular hours, so prices can move more on smaller orders.

The exchange is also restricting how orders can be placed outside regular hours. Cboe also restricts entry of market orders and triggering of stop orders outside of the RTH session. Instead, limit orders will be required. A limit order lets a trader set the exact price they're willing to pay or accept, rather than accepting whatever price is available, which matters more when fewer buyers and sellers are active. Cboe has also framed the extra post-market minutes as a practical safeguard: investors will now have an additional 15 minutes to avoid contra-exercise risk, the risk that an options position closes out of the money right before expiration based on a stock price that then moves after the bell.

The appetite for these kinds of sessions already shows up in Cboe's existing index-options business. Cboe currently offers near 24x5 trading in its Global Trading Hours and Curb Trading Hours for several proprietary index options, including S&P 500 Index options and Cboe Volatility Index options. GTH and Curb volumes increased 32% in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the first quarter of 2025. Separately, trading during those hours has grown in popularity, with a record 228,097 average options traded in the pre-market session daily last quarter, according to exchange data. Those figures describe Cboe's established index-options products (such as the S&P 500 and VIX contracts), not the new single-stock and ETF sessions launching this month, so they are a measure of existing demand rather than a projection for the new program.

What comes next

Cboe's extended-hours push for options is part of a wider build-out. The company plans to launch 23x5 U.S. equities trading on its Cboe EDGX Equities Exchange in December, pending regulatory approval. That plan covers the underlying shares themselves, not options, and still needs separate regulatory sign-off. Cboe has also said it will revisit the eligible stock and ETF list for the options sessions on a regular cycle: the company expects to update the multi-listed equity options class list semi-annually. The next review will determine whether names are added or dropped using the same volume, market-cap and liquidity thresholds.