Korea's Main Stock Exchange Now Trades Until 8 PM — The New Market Hours, Explained
Since September 14, 2026, the Korea Exchange (KRX) has run a 4–8 PM evening session with real-time trading. Korean stocks now trade on two venues at once in the evening. Here's the new schedule in your time zone, the rules that differ from the day session, and the one trap that catches people.
- KRX now trades 4–8 PM KST in real time (07:00–11:00 UTC). Its old 4–6 PM session, which matched orders only once every 10 minutes, is gone.
- Mornings didn't change. Only Nextrade (NXT) opens at 8 AM. KRX still starts trading at 9 AM.
- Unfilled KRX day orders die at 3:30 PM. They don't roll into the evening session. Unfilled NXT limit orders do stay alive until 8 PM — and that difference can make you buy or sell twice.
00 Quick background, if you're new to Korea
Four names you need for the rest of this post
- KOSPI is Korea's main board — the big names like Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Hyundai Motor. KOSDAQ is the smaller growth and tech board, roughly Korea's Nasdaq. Both are markets run by the same exchange.
- KRX (Korea Exchange) is that exchange. Every Korean stock is listed here, and it sets the official opening and closing prices.
- NXT (Nextrade) is Korea's first alternative trading system, launched in 2025. It trades only a subset of stocks — about 610 of the larger, more liquid names, because Korean law caps its volume relative to KRX — but it has been open from 8 AM to 8 PM since day one.
- SOR (smart order routing) isn't a venue. It's a broker feature that sends your order to whichever of the two venues is open or offers the better deal.
I covered how KRX and NXT differ in an earlier post. One line in it is now out of date: I wrote that if you see prices moving in real time in the evening, that's NXT. Since September 14, it could be KRX too.
01 The trading day, before and after
8 AM to 8 PM KST — blue is KRX, grey is NXT, red is new
Until September 13old
From September 14now
Only the right end changed. From 4 to 8 PM, KRX now trades alongside NXT. Everything else stays as it was. Here's where an order goes in each window if your broker uses smart routing (the table follows the schedule published by Kiwoom Securities, one of Korea's largest retail brokers):
| Time (KST) | NXT | KRX | Your order goes to |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:00–08:30 | Pre-market | Closed | NXT |
| 08:30–08:50 | Pre-market | Opening auction (collecting orders) | NXT |
| 08:50–09:00 | Closed | Opening auction | KRX |
| 09:00–15:20 | Main market (from 09:00:30) | Regular session | KRX or NXT |
| 15:20–15:30 | Closed | Closing auction | KRX |
| 15:30–16:00 | After-market | Closed | NXT |
| 16:00–20:00 | After-market | After-market (new) | KRX or NXT |
Note the 3:30–4 PM gap: only NXT is open for real-time trading. If a stock isn't on NXT's list, there's nowhere to trade it continuously in that half hour.
02 What time is that where you are?
Korea doesn't use daylight saving time — but London and New York do
The new 4–8 PM KST session lands on Europe's morning and the very early US morning. For Asia-Pacific it's mid-to-late afternoon.
| City | Until Oct 24 | Oct 25 – Oct 31 | From Nov 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UTC | 07:00–11:00 | 07:00–11:00 | 07:00–11:00 |
| London | 08:00–12:00 | 07:00–11:00 | 07:00–11:00 |
| New York | 03:00–07:00 | 03:00–07:00 | 02:00–06:00 |
| Singapore / Hong Kong | 15:00–19:00 | 15:00–19:00 | 15:00–19:00 |
The whole Korean trading day — NXT's 8 AM KST open to the 8 PM KST close — now runs 23:00 UTC (previous day) to 11:00 UTC. That's 7 PM to 7 AM in New York under daylight saving time.
03 What actually changed at KRX after 4 PM
Batched trading was replaced by real-time trading
KRX did have trading between 4 and 6 PM before. But it was an auction held every 10 minutes: orders piled up, then everything matched at one price. Prices could only move ±10% around that day's close. That session was scrapped on September 14 and replaced by the new after-market.
| Old off-hours session | New after-market | |
|---|---|---|
| Hours | 16:00–18:00 | 16:00–20:00 |
| How trades happen | Batched every 10 minutes | Continuously, like the day session |
| Price range | ±10% of that day's close | ±30% of the previous close (same as the day session) |
The short 3:40–4 PM session where you can trade only at that day's closing price is still there.
04 Rules for the evening session
What works differently from the day
- Most stocks — but no ETFs or ETNs — on KRX. The KRX evening session covers ordinary KOSPI and KOSDAQ shares, foreign companies listed in Korea, depositary receipts and REITs — most of the 2,642 stocks listed on KOSPI (831) and KOSDAQ (1,811) as of September 11. That's roughly four times NXT's list of about 610. ETFs and ETNs are left out, and so are stocks under special supervision, stocks with investment warnings, halted stocks and very illiquid names.
- No market orders. KRX's evening session accepts only limit-type orders (plain limit orders, plus two variants that peg to the best price on the book). Market orders are rejected. NXT never had ordinary market orders either. In the evening, use limit orders.
- Same price limits and safeguards as the day. Korea caps daily moves at ±30% from the previous close, and that applies in the evening too. So do volatility interruptions (VI — a brief automatic pause after a sharp price move) and short-selling rules.
- Liquidity is thin compared with the day session. On opening day, KRX's evening session traded KRW 1.82 trillion (about USD 1.3 billion). NXT's after-market, which runs from 3:30 PM, traded almost the same amount. That's a small fraction of a normal day session, so spreads can be wider and bigger orders move prices more. Splitting orders helps.
05 The trap: your unfilled day orders
The one thing most likely to cost you money
Say you place a limit order at 2 PM to sell at KRW 10,000 (about USD 7.40) and it doesn't fill. What happens next depends on which venue the order is sitting on.
| Venue | At the end of the day session | In the evening |
|---|---|---|
| KRX | Expires at 3:30 PM. Brokers cancel it around 3:35 PM. | Gone. You must enter a new order after 4 PM. |
| NXT | A plain limit order stays live.* | Still working until 8 PM unless you cancel it. |
* Some special NXT order types expire earlier: mid-point orders and untriggered stop-limit orders end with the main market, and pre-market-only orders end with the pre-market.
Some Korean brokers will carry the order over for you
To fix this, several Korean brokers launched opt-in services that move unfilled KRX day orders into the evening session. According to Korean media reports on September 14, they include Daishin Securities (moves them to KRX's 4 PM after-market), and Mirae Asset, Korea Investment & Securities and iM Securities (move them to NXT's after-market). All of them must be switched on separately. Brokers without such a service tell customers to cancel and re-enter manually.
06 Which "closing price" is real?
The official close is still 3:30 PM
Even with trading until 8 PM, the official closing price is the 3:30 PM KRX close. It sets the next day's reference price, the ±30% limits, index levels and market caps.
Some popular Korean finance portals show the 8 PM price as the "close". It confused enough people that KRX put out a notice about it on September 17. If you pull daily closing prices from a data vendor, check which one it uses. Otherwise your "daily change" numbers won't match the exchange's.
07 Checklist
- Evening = limit orders. Market orders aren't accepted.
- No ETFs or ETNs on KRX in the evening.
- After 3:30 PM, check your open orders. KRX orders are gone; NXT orders are still live. Re-enter only what's actually missing.
- Use a carry-over service if your broker has one, and read where it sends the order.
- Use the 3:30 PM close for daily returns, not an 8 PM "close" from a portal.
- Convert the hours to your time zone, and note the daylight-saving switches in late October and early November.
- Overseas broker? Confirm which evening venues it supports. NXT access doesn't mean KRX evening access, and non-NXT stocks trade in the evening only on KRX.
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