From hliu at mindspring.com Thu May 27 07:35:32 1999
No down time for companies to release news.
I presume that the 'trading halt for news' rule would be maintained; it's already the case that specialists (and companies) can request halts in trading under certain circustances to allow news to disseminate. I believe this will bring more pressure on companies to get better reporting discipline :)
No down time for market makers to regroup, thus creating more
volatility and conditions where few stocks can open for
trading.
This sounds like whining; things happen 24x7, and if you can't keep up with tracking them, you don't have any claim to be a market maker. It is precisely the market maker's responsibility to know. It's already the case that many stocks are dual (and N-) listed; you can almost trade IBM 24x5 these days.
[ I'm ignoring for the moment that you *can* trade any stock anyplace
anytime over-the-counter; I'm just talking about the organized
markets here ... ]
The problem of of liquidity is of concern. Buyers may place an
order at an quoted price and wake up finding him/herself paying
12 points higher in the morning.
This is not a liquidity concern; this is an education concern! :)
It's true that once the retail sector kicks in on 24x7, people will have to be taught that just because you put your order in, it doesn't mean there's a contra out there. Who knows, maybe it will lead to market orders defaulting to FOK (fill-or-kill)?
Ultimately, it ought to be liquidity-positive: removing artificial time/space constraints and opening up the market to all interested participants will result in better liquidity across a wider time-frame around the world.
/jordan