The US stock market has official trading hours from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, excluding public holidays.

For investors in India, Eastern Time is 10.5 hours behind IST. This means the US market is open from roughly 8:00 PM to 2:30 AM IST.

Most Indian brokerages that offer US market access let you place orders during Indian daytime hours. Those orders are typically queued and executed when the US market opens.

There are also trading sessions that happen outside the main market hours, known as Extended Trading Hours.

• Pre-market trading runs from 4:00 AM to 9:30 AM Eastern Time.
• After-hours trading runs from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time.

Vested allows investors to trade during these extended hours, which means you can react to important global news or earnings announcements even before the regular market session begins.

However, it is important to understand how these sessions behave.

Extended hours markets are thinner. Fewer participants are active, which means prices can move more sharply even on smaller orders. Many companies release their quarterly earnings after the market closes, and those announcements can cause significant price movements during after-hours trading before the stock settles when the main session opens the next day.

As a general rule, trading during the main market hours usually provides better liquidity, tighter spreads, and more predictable execution. Extended hours trading is useful when needed, but most long-term investors still prefer placing their trades during the regular session.