SEC gives 24X a fallback route to overnight trading if the SIPs miss their 6 December start

The Securities and Exchange Commission has granted 24X National Exchange temporary, conditional exemptive relief to trade overnight before the consolidated market data system can carry its quotes. The relief applies only if the equity data plans miss their 6 December target date. The order, dated 7 August, grants less than 24X asked for in its December 2025 application.

24X’s rules provide for four sessions. The overnight one, the 24X Market Session, runs from 9:00pm to 4:00am ET on Sunday to Thursday nights before a US business day. The order says 24X began operating on 14 October 2025 and trades its pre-market, core and post-market sessions, but has not yet opened the overnight one. Its own Rule 1.5(c) bars it from doing so unless the equity data plans can collect, consolidate and disseminate quotation and transaction information for those hours.

What 24X asked for, and what it got

24X applied on 15 December 2025 for relief from parts of Rule 602 of Regulation NMS, from the quote-reporting requirements of the UTP and CQ plans, and from the duty under Section 19(g)(1) of the Exchange Act to follow its own Rules 1.5(c) and 11.6. The application asked to open the overnight session before the SIPs were ready.

The ground shifted after the application was published. On 26 June the Commission approved amendments extending the exclusive SIPs to 23 hours a day, five days a week, and the plans said they expected to be ready by 6 December 2026.

Several commenters argued that relief would take away the data plans’ incentive to hit that date. The Commission agreed that allowing 24X to trade overnight before 6 December “could potentially lessen the incentive for the Equity Data Plans to meet their deadline”, and it declined to grant that. Instead the relief:

• takes effect only on 24 January 2027, and only if the equity data plans have not implemented the extended hours by 6 December. If the plans go live between those dates, the relief never takes effect.
• ends on the earlier of the date the extended-hours amendments are implemented or 2 July 2027. The order describes 2 July as the end of trading for the week that concludes the second quarter of 2027.

The order says this structure lets every exchange whose rules permit overnight trading start at the same time as 24X, which supports fair competition between venues. One commenter warned that market participants could be left underprepared, hurting best execution and risk management. The Commission said it agreed, which is why the relief would not take effect until 24 January. It also cited the year-end systems freeze that many firms observe in December and January.

Conditions

If the relief takes effect, seven conditions apply. Six fall on 24X, which must:

1. publish a real-time proprietary feed with the quote data elements required by the UTP and CQ plans and the last-sale elements required by the UTP and CTA plans, at no cost;
2. state on its website that consolidated quote data is not available for the 24X Market Session and that its own feeds are the only source;
3. keep meeting Rules 601 and 602 and the data plans in its other three sessions;
4. report overnight trades to the plans on a delayed basis, as the UTP and CTA plans currently require;
5. give the Commission quarterly data on overnight quoting and trading volume;
6. file a rule change confirming that it can meet its Exchange Act obligations and the order’s conditions.

The seventh requires NSCC to have Commission-approved rules in place permitting it to clear and settle trades in the 24X Market Session.

The opposition

The objections listed in the order include exchange trading without SIP data, the imminent SIP expansion, the effect on other exchanges and market participants, and the use of a proprietary feed. Some commenters said an exchange operating without the SIPs would fracture consolidated price information. In its response, 24X said three market data vendors now offer consolidated overnight feeds. The Commission said such vendor data is not a substitute for SIP data, which carries other information such as regulatory data.

Why it matters

Analysis. For market practitioners, the order sets out what happens if the 6 December SIP start slips. A short slip changes nothing. A slip past 24 January would let 24X open with quotes that never reach the SIP, while overnight trades reach the tape only on a delayed basis.

In that case, brokers routing overnight orders, and their best-execution committees, would need 24X’s direct feed or a vendor’s consolidated overnight product to see the quotes. The free-of-charge condition removes a cost barrier but not the engineering work. Quarterly volume data to the Commission would give the first regulatory read on how much activity an exchange draws overnight without SIP quotes.

The order also caps the uncertainty. Even in the worst case, the arrangement ends by 2 July 2027.

Added 1 Nov 2026 to the Market Structure section; dated to the event, not published at the time.

Sources

• Release No. 34-106061: Order granting temporary conditional exemptive relief to 24X National Exchange LLC (File No. S7-2026-06), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 7 Aug 2026
• 24X application for temporary conditional exemptive relief, published for comment as Release No. 34-104894, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 25 Feb 2026