Trading Outside Regular Trading Hours (RTH)

Study Notes:

In this video, we will review how to instruct an order to continue to work outside of normal trading hours by enabling Outside Regular Trading Hours or RTH within Trader Workstation. You can manage the Outside RTH attribute as a default order preset, and also on a per order basis.

To set the order attribute for outside RTH as a default order preset:

• Open Global Configuration and select Presets from the left side menu. Presets are typically managed by asset class.
• For this scenario, we will configure trading outside of RTH as the default for stocks by clicking the blue Stock hyperlink.
• Under the Timing section, I will click to check the box for Allow order to be activated, triggered or filled outside of regular trading hours (if available).
• Once satisfied with the default preset, click Apply then OK at the bottom to save and activate the changes.
• Now, the default stock preset for outside of RTH will be enabled by default but only if it is available for the product that is entered in the Order Entry Panel.

You can check the designation to fill outside Regular Trading Hours by entering a stock into the order entry such as IBKR and click on the Time in Force drop down.

I will enter IBKR and under the Time in Force drop down, you can see the box is checked off next to Fill Outside RTH indicating that the order is instructed to continue working before and after normal trading hours. This can also be confirmed on the Order Confirmation after clicking submit. The Order Confirmation will display True next to Outside Regular Trading Hours.

If outside of regular trading hours is not available for a given product, the preset for that attribute will not be applied.

For example, if I enter GBTC stock in the order entry panel, the box to fill outside of RTH will not be displayed as it is not available for this particular product.

It is also possible to enable outside regular trading hours on a per order basis instead of using presets.

• At the time of the trade, enter the product in the order entry window and fill out the other order attributes such as order type.
• Prior to submitting the order, select the Time in Force drop down and click to check the box next to Fill Outside RTH.

Within Trader Workstation, you can view the regular trading hours and the total trading hours for a given product.

• In the Portfolio tab or a Watchlist, right click on the product and a pop-up list will appear.
• Select Financial Instrument Information then click Description.
• Note you may need to click on the grey arrow at the bottom of the pop-up to expand the complete list of available choices.
• A new window will open with details regarding the product.
• The trading hours will be displayed on the left in the Stock Description section under Trading Schedule.
• You will see the regular trading hours, the total available hours, and the exchange time zone. You may need to scroll down to view the entire section.

As we’ve discussed, it is possible to trade many exchange-listed products outside of regular trading hours and to enable this order attribute for eligible products by default using TWS Presets.

Outside RTH