tastytrade Adds Overnight SPX Options; Cboe Hits 224k a Day

tastytrade has added overnight trading for four Cboe index-options products, letting its clients trade SPX, VIX, XSP and RUT options during the US overnight session. The contracts are available from 8:15 p.m. to 9:25 a.m. Eastern Time, Sunday evening through Friday morning, in addition to regular daytime hours and the electronic Curb session from 4:15 to 5:00 p.m. That gives customers near-continuous weekday access with only brief pauses between sessions.

The four contracts cover different segments of US market risk: SPX tracks the S&P 500, XSP is one-tenth the size of SPX, VIX is tied to expected equity volatility, and RUT tracks the Russell 2000 small-cap index. Cboe added RUT options to its near-24-hour session in February 2026, completing the set now available through tastytrade. Customers use the same desktop and mobile order ticket as during the regular session, but orders must be entered with limit prices. Global Hours and good-till-cancelled Global Hours instructions determine whether an order remains eligible outside the main trading day.

Pete Mulmat, tastytrade and IGNA Head of Brokerage, said: “Institutional traders have always had access to the overnight session, and we’re putting that same capability in the hands of the active retail traders who will actually use it. Our customers are already among the most engaged index options traders anywhere. XSP is a top 10 product on our platform while it sits outside the top 40 industry wide.”

The practical use case is event risk. US consumer inflation and producer-price reports are typically released at 8:30 a.m., an hour before the cash equity market opens, while central-bank decisions, elections and geopolitical events in Asia and Europe can move S&P 500 futures overnight. Overnight options allow traders to buy protection, trim an existing hedge or express a volatility view before the opening auction absorbs the news. The feature follows tastytrade’s recent launch of round-the-clock prediction-market contracts tied to economic and market events, pushing the broker further toward an event-driven trading model.

Cboe reported record overnight volume of 224,000 Global Trading Hours contracts in average daily volume during July, including 197,000 SPX contracts. In May, SPX overnight volume had set a then-record of 171,000 contracts, putting the July SPX figure about 15% higher. tastytrade said the overnight session recently exceeded 4% of total SPX options volume, up from roughly 3% several months earlier. Even so, more than 95% of SPX activity still occurs outside the overnight window, and lower volume can mean wider bid-offer spreads and thinner depth.

Looking ahead, tastytrade said it is preparing to support extended-session single-stock options when a future around-the-clock rollout begins. That would be most useful during earnings season, when companies typically report after the closing bell. Following SEC approval, Cboe has introduced selected equity options from 7:30 to 9:25 a.m. and 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. as an initial step, but no date or eligible-name list has been announced for tastytrade’s overnight single-stock offering. Physical settlement makes those contracts harder to extend than cash-settled index options because the underlying shares, options market, clearing system and broker risk controls must stay aligned.

For IG Group, tastytrade is an increasingly important part of the US business. The exchange-traded derivatives arm generated £40.7 million of net trading revenue in the first quarter, up 7% in sterling terms and 14% in US dollar terms, according to IG’s latest trading update. The new overnight access expands trading opportunities without requiring a new contract or venue, though its success will depend on whether customers find usable prices during the overnight session.