South Korea’s main stock exchange extends trading hours into the evening, allowing trades to continue later than the usual market close. Korea Exchange enables trading through 8:00 p.m. for nearly all local stocks, compared with the prior regular closing time of 3:30 p.m.
The move breaks with typical Asian trading-hour schedules and is intended to attract sustained demand from international investors. Multiple outlets frame the change as part of a broader effort to move toward more continuous market hours, sometimes described as progress toward 24-hour trading. Some coverage emphasizes the test of global investor appetite by offering liquidity during later hours, while other accounts focus on the operational shift and the specific time extension for most stocks.
Overall, the reports describe a policy experiment by Korea Exchange to broaden trading accessibility, with the goal of aligning market hours more closely with global schedules while assessing whether longer hours translate into stronger investor participation.
