Korea Exchange extends trading hours to attract global investors

South Korea’s main stock exchange is doing something its Asian peers have largely avoided: staying open after dinner. The Korea Exchange, known as KRX, announced on September 9 that it will launch a continuous after-market trading session starting September 14, running from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Korea Standard Time. That four-hour window replaces a clunkier system that ran auction-style trades in 10-minute intervals between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. The new session uses real-time order matching, which means prices move continuously rather than in discrete jumps every few minutes. What’s actually changing KRX is covering listed stocks and depositary receipts on both its KOSPI and KOSDAQ boards. ETFs and ETNs are excluded from the new session, at least for now. Only limit orders will be accepted, meaning traders cannot place market orders that execute at whatever price is available. Price movement caps are set at 30%, and the exchange will use time-based volatility interruptions to cool things down if trading gets disorderly. Thirty-eight brokerages have signed up to participate, and they represent 95.2% of current trading volume, so the session will have meaningful coverage from day one. The ext...