This week in charts
EV charging connectors by region
EV charging installations by region
Stock price for EV charging companies
U.S. vs. Germany 10-year yield
Value of Canada and Mexico exports plus imports
Volatility Index
S&P 500 – total put volume
S&P 500 momentum crowding
Magnificent 7
Multiple jobholders as share of U.S. employment
The Humanoid Robot
Nasdaq joins in race to offer 24-hour equity trading
The US bourse, best known as the home of many large technology companies, on Friday revealed it planned to apply for regulatory permission to extend its hours through the night. The New York Stock Exchange and Chicago-based Cboe Global Markets, the third big player among US exchanges, have already made similar applications.
At present, US equities are available for trading between 4am and 8pm Eastern time. Pre-market and post-market sessions already stretch the day beyond its core hours between 9.30am and 4pm.
In recent years, however, online retail brokers such as Robinhood and Interactive Brokers have begun offering overnight dealing to their clients. Those operations are supported by the Blue Ocean trading platform, whose business is now being looked at by its bigger rivals.
In an article posted on LinkedIn, Nasdaq president Tal Cohen gave several reasons for the decision, including the rise of retail trading, as well as the growth of international holdings of US stocks. Both groups are more likely to want to trade outside normal US business hours.
The Nasdaq boss warned that many problems needed to be ironed out before 24-hour trading could become a reality — something that its rivals have previously acknowledged.
Issues to be addressed included the need to extend the operation of the “tape” — the record of transactions done on exchanges — to cover the extra hours. It would also be necessary to find commonly agreed ways of handling so-called “corporate actions” — for example when a company undertakes price-changing moves such as shrinking or expanding its share count or announcing dividends.
Cohen acknowledged concerns among the companies whose shares would be traded.
This week’s fun find
Finding the Future of Packaging, in Finland
As a journalist, sometimes your curiosity gets the best of you.
… Which is how I find myself in a chilly remote forest in Finland, on a press trip to see how the company Metsä makes its fresh fiber paper products. Which, in theory, might sound ultimately boring, were it not for what I’d heard about Metsä over the years: that they take sustainable production to innovative and elaborate, if not intense, heights. That they oversee a homegrown regenerative forestry program focused on native trees and biodiversity. That they produce the most coated white kraftliners globally using 90% fossil-free energy—with a goal to achieve zero CO₂ in all their mills by the end of 2030, not unlike their massive future-forward complex in the town of Äänekoski, which produces 2.4 times as much energy as it consumes, and is entirely free of fossil fuels. That this is all being done in the private sector.
Collectively, it’s a remarkable operation on its own. But the real reason I’m here today is because I want to find out why.
