The Bruce Overnight Edge: Never Miss a Sunday Session

Capturing The Weekend

In the live music scene, there is a golden rule: never miss a Sunday show. They have the highest energy and the deepest cuts after a long weekend run. The exact same applies to the overnight equities market. We have discussed how the Sunday night session is the first opportunity for the market to release a full weekend of pent-up volatility and react to global news (see BOE-22 Sunday Nights are for Action). Savvy participants are not waiting for the 8:00pm ET bell to ring to get their orders to Bruce ATS.

The Pressure Builds

To capture this action, you need to understand the mechanics of the Bruce ATS Sunday queue. It is also important to note that one of our competitors, Blue Ocean ATS, does not allow for the queuing of orders on Sunday or any other day.

• The 7:50pm ET Start: While trades in the overnight session begin at 8:00pm ET, we start accepting orders ten minutes earlier at 7:50pm ET. IOC orders are not accepted in the queuing period because they cannot execute immediately.
• Time Priority: Accepted orders in the queuing period are held in time priority and processed into the book at 8:00pm ET.
• Market Data: As a fully transparent “Lit Pool”, Bruce ATS publishes market data for queued orders at the time the order is accepted. Queued orders are visible in our standard Top of Book and Depth data feeds. If you don’t have access to our market data, and want to see these orders, contact sales@brucemarkets.com.
• The 8:00pm Open: At 8:00pm ET, Bruce ATS processes the queued orders and matches all executable interest. The session proceeds from there on a lit price/time basis.

The Light is Growing Brighter¹

The Sunday queue has experienced tremendous growth over the past 5 weeks. We believe the trend is clear and the data speaks for itself.

Sunday Night Queued Order Charts²

Tremendous growth of +239% in queued orders peaking at almost 300k orders for over 45M shares this week.

Sunday Night Open Traded Charts³

The queued orders are generating more and more trade activity at the open. This past Sunday, Bruce ATS executed over $12M notional on over 140k shares at the open.

Retail Driven⁴

In the BOE, we often discuss how retail drives the overnight market (see BOE-24 Retail in the Night, Part II). Retail represented ~96% of shares traded on the Sunday night open this week.

By The Numbers

Weekly Top 25 Symbols⁵

Bruce on Tour

• Catch up with Bruce Markets at the rescheduled Tabb Forum event ATSs and Off-Exchange Trading – Opportunities and Challenges next week in NYC on April 27th. Our CEO, Jason Wallach, will be a panelist for “The Future of Retail Participation in ATSs/24-Hour Trading”.

The Bruce Markets Team

¹All data is from internal Bruce ATS sources covering the 5 Sunday sessions from March 22nd to April 29th, 2026. Note that the trade date for these sessions is the Monday calendar date.

²”Queued Orders” are only orders accepted by Bruce ATS between 7:50pm and 8:00pm ET.

³”Sunday Night Open” refers strictly to trades that match between queued orders at 8:00pm ET when trading commences.

⁴Utilizes an internal classification of shares traded on Bruce ATS into one of three segments (Retail, Proprietary/Market Maker, and Agency Broker).

⁵Top 25 data is from internal Bruce ATS sources through trade date 04/24/2026.