Trading Near the Bells (2024)

If the first and last hours of the trading day seem like the most hectic, it's because they are. On a typical day, more shares trade hands in the first hour than during any other, as orders placed when the market was closed are processed. Volume tends to pick back up at the end of the day, as institutional investors look to close out positions or enter new ones.

Higher volume is generally good for active traders: More shares are available to trade, and that extra liquidity leads to tighter bid-ask spreads (that is, the difference between the highest price someone is willing to pay for a share, and the lowest price someone is willing to accept to sell it). But if you're not careful, trades can quickly move against you, which is why most long-term investors should consider trading near the middle of the day, when conditions are generally calmer.

Even seasoned traders can find buying and selling near the opening and closing bells a bit like surfing when waves are biggest—if you misread the conditions, you can easily get hurt. What"s more, the spikes in volume at these times happen for fundamentally different reasons, so strategies that help you successfully navigate the market's open may work against you at its close.

The surge in volume at the start of the day doesn't necessarily mean prices become more volatile. Buyers and sellers can balance each other out, creating a kind of equilibrium. But when news breaks outside of trading hours, an imbalance between buy and sell orders may cause a stock to open dramatically higher or lower than its price at the previous close.

A stock hit by negative news often “gaps lower,” or opens much lower than it closed. In these cases, the stock tends to continue falling for the first five to 10 minutes as traders join the selling. This is typically followed by a recovery period for the next 20 minutes or so, as the overnight gap is “filled” as transactions go through and bargain-hunters step in (unless the news pushing the stock lower is truly disastrous). That initial fall can be alarming, especially if you're long the stock— meaning you bought it with the expectation that its price would rise—but don't overreact. It may be best to wait to see if it's going to keep falling or start rallying. One way to protect yourself against further declines is to set a stop order under the lowest price reached in the first 10 minutes. A stop order is an order to buy or sell a stock at the market price once the stock has traded at or through a specified price (the “stop price”). If the stock reaches the stop price, the order becomes a market order and is filled at the next available market price.

Stocks that “gap up,” on the other hand, may present a great selling opportunity. Like downward trends at the open, upward trends tend to reverse themselves after the first five to 10 minutes, so you'll want to take advantage of the upside before the stock moves lower. In these situations, using a trailing stop that rises along with the stock may help maximize your selling price.

In either case, you should know by 10 a.m. ET whether the opening trend will hold or reverse itself. One clue is the strength of the trend line. If the line is steep—think 45 degrees or greater—then the trend is likely to continue. But if it's relatively flat, there's a greater likelihood that the trend will fizzle out.

Rush hours

End-of-day trading tends to solidify the consensus established by action earlier in the day. Stocks that have been trending up typically keep rising, while stocks that have been tracking lower often plumb new depths.

This is largely because end-of-day trading tends to be dominated by institutional investors. Index-fund managers generally trade near the close to match the returns of their benchmark. And mutual funds typically wait to execute trades so they know how much cash they need to raise to cover the day's redemptions or, conversely, how much cash from new inflows they have to invest.

Both factors tend to reinforce the direction prices have been heading over the course of the day. Indeed, if the market has been exhibiting a general uptrend, more often than not it will continue to move higher in the last hour. If you planned to sell a profitable position, this may be a good time to do it. You never know what news might hit after the close, and there's always the potential for the stock to gap lower the next trading day. On the other hand, end of day is generally not a great time to add a position, even one with a clear positive trend.

Two caveats: Big news during the day—say, a Federal Reserve interest rate announcement—can upset these market tendencies. And when reversals do occur in the final hour, they tend to be severe. For example, if the market has been moving lower and then starts to recover, nervous traders may begin snapping up shares to close out their short positions in what is called a “short squeeze,” pushing prices dramatically higher. On the flip side, those with long positions may move to sell if prices that have been trending higher face resistance in the final minutes. Either way, it's wise to wait until the last 10 to 15 minutes to determine whether the day's trend will hold or reverse.