Deutsche Boerse Warns on 24/7 Trading Push

Deutsche Boerse's chief executive, Theodor Weimer, publicly warned on Apr 25, 2026 that a push toward 24/7 electronic trading risks fragmenting liquidity and increasing systemic operational burdens (Investing.com, Apr 25, 2026). The argument has heightened relevance as several Wall Street venues and broker-dealers accelerate pilots and technology investments designed to extend trading windows outside the traditional 9:30-16:00 US equity session. Moving from a standard five-day, 32.5-hour US regular-session week (6.5 hours/day x 5) to continuous trading would increase the available trading hours to 168 hours/week — a 5.17x expansion in trading-time exposure — and poses consequences for liquidity providers, surveillance, and margining. Weimer's comments frame the debate not as a binary for-or-against but as a risk-management challenge: who bears the costs of monitoring, and how will continuous quoting affect spreads and market resilience? This article dissects the data points, historical comparisons, sector implications, and regulatory considerations institutional investors should watch.

Context

The public intervention by Deutsche Boerse on Apr 25, 2026 followed media reports that several US venues and large broker-dealers are moving toward near-continuous matching and extended-hours protocols (Investing.com, Apr 25, 2026). Deutsche Boerse's management argued that round-the-clock trading contradicts the structure designed for concentrated liquidity during defined sessions, such as Xetra's continuous trading window (09:00-17:30 CET) and the NYSE/Nasdaq core hours, which help centralize order flow and discovery. The CEO emphasised operational burdens: continuous markets require 24-hour surveillance, expanded disaster recovery capacity, and different liquidity provision economics compared with concentrated sessions.

The 24/7 model already exists in other asset classes and venues: cryptocurrency markets operate continuously (effectively 24/7 since 2009) and electronic FX markets are effectively open 24 hours across overlapping sessions, but both have distinct microstructure characteristics — notably fragmented liquidity pools and varied counterparty profiles. Converting cash equity markets to a continuous global model would not simply replicate crypto or FX mechanics because equities carry different clearing, settlement and regulatory frameworks (eg central clearing, T+1/T+2 settlement regimes). Weimer's remarks frame the debate in terms of systemic fragility rather than competitive parity.

Timing and political economy matter. Regulators in Europe and the US have differing priorities on market structure; the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) historically emphasises investor protection and transparency, while US regulators have prioritized competition and innovation in markets. Any meaningful shift to 24/7 trading for cash equities would therefore require technical changes at exchanges, clearing houses and central counterparties, and would probably trigger a formal consultation process across jurisdictions.

Data Deep Dive

Concrete scale effects are instructive. A standard US regular trading week is 32.5 hours (6.5 hours/day x 5 days); expanding to 168 hours/week increases trading-time exposure by 517% (168/32.5 = 5.17x). For a European benchmark, Xetra's main continuous window runs from 09:00 to 17:30 CET — 8.5 hours/day, or 42.5 hours/week — implying a 3.95x increase if markets were to move to 168 hours/week (168/42.5 = 3.95x). These raw multiples understate microstructure complexity because liquidity availability is not linear with hours; liquidity tends to cluster in overlapping regional sessions and around scheduled macro releases.

Empirical evidence from extended-hours trading shows lower displayed depth and wider spreads outside core sessions. For US equities, intraday studies have demonstrated that after-hours spreads can be several multiples wider than regular-session spreads for the same securities; anecdotal estimates from market microstructure literature indicate spreads can widen by 2-5x in thinly traded hours, depending on the stock's liquidity profile. That creates execution-cost and market-impact implications for institutional flow seeking to execute at non-core times and increases the risk of adverse selection for passive liquidity providers.

Clearing and margin models also face stress. CCPs and clearing members price margin and intraday risk exposure around known settlement cycles; moving to continuous trading elevates the need for real-time margin recalculation and liquidity buffers. The existing settlement cadence (eg T+1 or T+2 regimes) would interact with continuous quoting in complex ways, raising questions about intraday margin calls and collateral management across time zones. These are non-trivial operational costs that will have to be priced by exchanges, brokers, and market-makers.

Sector Implications

Exchanges: incumbents such as Deutsche Boerse and US operators will need to decide whether to run continuous central limit order books or to offer extended sessions as add-ons. Running a full 24/7 matching engine requires full-time operations teams, expanded surveillance and forensic tooling, and potential changes to fee schedules to compensate for lower liquidity during some hours. For operators that already provide post-trade services (clearing, settlement), the incremental cost of 24/7 trading is multiplied because those services must remain resilient around the clock.

Broker-dealers and liquidity providers: firms that act as market makers will need to re-evaluate inventory financing, hedging strategies and staffing models. Hedging a global inventory position across a 168-hour calendar introduces carry costs and counterparty exposure that do not scale linearly with trading hours. Institutional brokers will need to determine whether extended-hour liquidity provision is monetizable once operational and risk costs are included. Some sell-side desks may elect to concentrate capital in overlapping sessions rather than continuously, which could reinforce the clustering effects Deutsche Boerse warns about.

Buy-side institutions: large asset managers executing multi-day programs must reassess implementation shortfall models. If continuous venues fragment volume across additional hours, the probability of encountering shallower order books increases for less-liquid names, potentially increasing execution risk. That said, for highly-liquid mega-cap names the marginal benefit of incremental liquidity windows could be real — but concentrated liquidity during core overlap hours is likely to remain the most relevant benchmark for tight execution.

Risk Assessment

Market fragmentation risk: extending trading hours globally risks creating a mosaic of liquidity pools that do not interact efficiently, raising information asymmetries. Where orders are thinly displayed, price discovery can become localized and less representative of true market consensus. Regulators and operators must weigh this against the potential benefits of continuous access for global investors.

Operational and cyber risk: 24/7 markets increase attack surface and require continuous monitoring. The incremental staff, technology and redundancy costs are material: exchanges and CCPs will need 24-hour incident response teams, additional data-centre capacity and robust cross-border legal arrangements. The cost of outages also grows because any interruption can affect counterparties in any time zone at any hour.

Regulatory arbitrage and surveillance: continuous trading complicates surveillance because manipulative patterns can be executed in hours where liquidity is thin and detection thresholds calibrated to core-session behaviour may not apply. Regulators will need to re-specify surveillance parameters and cross-border information sharing to prevent bad actors from exploiting temporal gaps in oversight.

Outlook

Near term (6-18 months): expect incremental pilots and bespoke offerings targeted at specific client segments (eg liquidity APIs for OTC-like blocks, extended auctions). Large US venues and alternative trading systems are likely to experiment with extended windows and price-time protocols, but conversion to fully continuous global trading will be gradual because of the technical and regulatory changes required.

Medium term (18-36 months): commercial pressure and client demand could push exchanges to offer hybrid models — longer electronic sessions with scheduled consolidation auctions to concentrate liquidity at predictable times. Revenue models may shift toward differentiated fees, charging for access to deeper liquidity zones or for guaranteed latency and liquidity. Regulators in major jurisdictions are likely to require proof of adequate surveillance capacity before permitting fully continuous, high-volume cash equity trading.

Long term (>36 months): if automation, AI-driven market-making and cross-border settlement reforms reduce marginal costs, parts of cash equity trading could lean toward near-continuous liquidity for the largest, most liquid names. However, for the long tail of smaller caps, concentrated sessions and auctions will likely persist as the efficient format for price discovery.

Fazen Markets Perspective

Contrary to the binary argument that 24/7 trading is an inevitability driven by technology, Fazen Markets contends that meaningful economic trade-offs will slow adoption. The arithmetic is stark: moving from a 32.5-hour US regular session to 168 hours/week multiplies operational exposure by more than five times, but liquidity and revenue do not scale proportionally. In our view, any large-scale extension will be incremental and differentiated by liquidity tier — with mega-caps and ETFs the most likely beneficiaries.

A non-obvious implication is that continuous trading could increase the relative value of consolidated data and crossing mechanisms that aggregate fragmented interest. If liquidity fragments across many thin windows, centralized consolidation points (scheduled auctions or crossing networks) may become more valuable, not less. That creates opportunities for service providers that can offer consolidated pre- and post-trade analytics, cross-venue execution algorithms, and 24-hour risk analytics. For institutional investors, the critical decision will be whether to participate in extended windows selectively or to maintain execution strategies that still anchor on core-session liquidity.

For granular policy: we expect European market operators to press for synchronous regulatory frameworks before wholesale model changes. As part of that debate, ESG and resilience considerations will play a role — exchanges will be asked to disclose the environmental and staffing impacts of 24/7 operations alongside the market-structure benefits.

FAQ

Q: Would 24/7 trading automatically lower execution costs for long-only institutions?

A: Not necessarily. While extended hours increase the availability of time windows to execute, execution cost reduction depends on depth and spread in those windows. Historical evidence from extended-hours trading shows wider spreads and lower depth outside core sessions, which can increase market impact and signalling risk. Institutions should evaluate realized spreads and effective cost statistics by security and time window before shifting execution strategies.

Q: How have other markets handled continuous trading and what lessons apply?

A: Crypto and FX markets operate continuously but with different counterparty and settlement structures. Crypto markets demonstrate that 24/7 trading can coexist with high volatility and fragmented liquidity; FX shows that overlapping regional sessions concentrate liquidity. For cash equities, central clearing, settlement cycles and regulatory oversight create additional constraints; hence hybrids (longer sessions plus scheduled consolidation events) are the more likely near-term path.

Bottom Line

Deutsche Boerse's warning crystallizes a broader market-structure debate: expanding hours increases access but substantially raises liquidity fragmentation, operational and surveillance costs. Expect incremental, tiered adoption rather than an immediate wholesale shift to 24/7 trading.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.