Bruce Markets plans weekend U.S. equity trading, pending regulatory approval

Bruce Markets LLC, the SEC-registered broker-dealer that operates the overnight venue Bruce ATS, said on September 29 that it will extend U.S. stock trading through the weekend, subject to regulatory approval, with a launch expected in the coming months. The stated aim is continuous 24/7 equity access for global investors, and InvestmentNews, which reported the announcement, describes the weekend as a gap no U.S. venue has previously filled. Clearing, carrying and custody would be handled by Apex Clearing Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Apex Fintech Solutions.

The capital behind the extension is partly new: PEAK6 Investments, now the majority shareholder, and Robinhood Markets have made strategic investments, while Apex Fintech Solutions, Fidelity Investments, Nasdaq Ventures, NH Investment & Securities, tastytrade and Webull remain investors. Nasdaq's trading technology will power the expanded sessions.

That division of labor is the same one PWD has been tracking from Apex all year, pairing a cloud wealth platform with its clearing rail, aimed at banks and credit unions. Here the rail carries everything. A weekend session requires a clearing broker at work on a Saturday, and Apex's operations are the ones the announcement names — which means the client record for anything that trades on a Saturday sits with the clearing broker long before it sits with the advisor.

The weekend is the far end of a schedule the industry has been stretching in stages: NYSE Arca received accelerated SEC approval in February 2025 to extend trading to 22 hours a day, five days a week, targeting a December 2026 launch; the SEC approved Nasdaq's 23/5 proposal on April 10, 2026; and Cboe Global Markets filed in March 2026 to introduce near-continuous equities trading during the business week on its Cboe EDGX Equities Exchange, also pointing at December 2026. The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation's National Securities Clearing Corporation targeted June 2026 to begin operating on a 24x5 basis, from Sunday at 8 p.m. ET through Friday at 8 p.m. ET, which the report describes as a prerequisite for overnight trades to carry the same settlement guarantees as regular-hours trades.

Regulators have kept pace: the SEC hosted a roundtable on September 17, 2026 to examine the march toward 24-hour equity markets, and Chairman Paul S. Atkins said in July that expanding trading hours was a priority focus for the agency.

Advisors inherit the practical consequence. The report makes the practical point plainly: clients accustomed to reading Sunday news about geopolitical events, earnings or macroeconomic data and waiting for Monday's open may soon be able to trade in real time, and that shift in client behavior will require firms to think carefully about weekend communication protocols. An operating week built around a five-day client calendar has no natural answer for a Sunday-night tape, and the staff who field client questions are not scheduled against one.

The questions a principal should write down are specific: whether the firm's trading policy speaks to weekend orders and who is authorized to place one. If a client calls at 9 p.m. on a Sunday wanting to sell into a headline, is the answer a live person, a voicemail, or a policy that says wait for Monday? The report does not answer those questions, nor does it describe how weekend settlement would work; the NSCC window it cites runs from Sunday at 8 p.m. ET through Friday at 8 p.m. ET, which on its own description leaves Saturday outside the infrastructure the industry has been building toward.

If a Saturday trade becomes ordinary, the client's expectation of the firm moves from a five-day promise to a seven-day one. The firms that own the rail — the clearing broker, the venue, the technology supplier — collect the flow without absorbing the client-service load, while the operational bill for access lands on the firm whose name is on the client relationship. That is the part of this announcement most likely to travel furthest inside an advisory office.

The calendar is the next thing to watch. Bruce Markets says the extension is subject to regulatory approval and expected in the coming months; the exchange proposals from Nasdaq, NYSE Arca and Cboe all point at December 2026. Before those dates arrive, every advisory firm with a client who reads the news on a Sunday will want a written answer to a question most have never had to ask: who is authorized to trade the account on a Saturday?