How to find today's stock market close

The stock market closes at 4 p.m. Eastern time on trading days (Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays). The three major indexes — the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq Composite — each finish at that same moment, and their closing values are published when ready by financial data providers.

You can find today's closing numbers on financial websites without paying: Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, MarketWatch, and CNBC all publish the day's close within seconds. The Associated Press also distributes closing data to news outlets. If you own individual stocks or funds, your brokerage account (Fidelity, Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, or wherever you hold investments) shows your holdings' closing prices automatically.

The closing price is the last price at which a stock or index traded during the regular session. After 4 p.m., extended-hours trading continues until 8 p.m. Eastern, but those trades are not included in the official close and are reported separately.

Key Takeaways

  • The stock market closes at 4 p.m. Eastern on weekdays, and the three major indexes publish their closing values when ready on financial websites.
  • The closing price is the final trade price during regular hours, not the highest or lowest price of the day.
  • Percentage change tells you how much an index or stock moved compared to the previous day's close, while point change is the raw dollar difference.
  • Extended-hours trading happens after 4 p.m., but those prices are not part of the official close and may differ significantly from regular-hours prices.

Understanding closing price versus intraday movement

The closing price is only one moment in the trading day. An index or stock may have traded much higher or lower during the six-and-a-half-hour session, but what matters for the official record is where it ended at 4 p.m.

When you see "the S&P 500 finished up 45 points," that means the closing price is 45 points higher than the previous trading day's close. If it "finished down 1.2%," the closing price is 1.2 percent lower than yesterday's close. The intraday high and low — the highest and lowest prices during that single day — are reported separately and tell a different story about volatility.

What point change and percentage change mean

Point change is the raw number: the S&P 500 closed at 5,432 today and 5,387 yesterday, so the point change is +45. This number is useful for people tracking absolute movement but can be misleading when comparing different indexes or stocks with different price levels.

Percentage change solves that problem by showing movement relative to the starting price. A 45-point gain on the S&P 500 is roughly 0.8 percent; a 45-point gain on a stock trading at $50 is 90 percent. Percentage change lets you compare how much different investments moved relative to their own size. Financial websites show both numbers so you can see the full picture.

Why the market closes at 4 p.m. Eastern

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq both operate on Eastern time and close at 4 p.m. because that is when the official trading session ends by rule. The exchanges set this time decades ago, and it has remained standard.

Before 9:30 a.m. Eastern, pre-market trading occurs on most brokerages, though with lower volume and wider spreads between buy and sell prices. After 4 p.m., extended-hours (or after-hours) trading continues until 8 p.m. on most platforms. These sessions exist but are not part of the official market close, so news reports and index calculations use only the 4 p.m. prices.

How closing prices affect your investments

If you place a market order during trading hours, you get filled at or near the current price. If you place a market order after 4 p.m., it will not execute until the next trading day opens at 9:30 a.m., and you will get whatever price the market opens at — which may be very different from where it closed.

For long-term investors holding stocks or funds, the daily close is less important than the overall trend. For active traders or people watching their portfolio daily, the close signals whether the day was "up" or "down" and sets the baseline for the next day's open.

When the market does not close at 4 p.m.

The stock market is closed on weekends and on federal holidays including New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. On these days, there is no official close because there is no trading.

The market also closes early — at 1 p.m. Eastern — on the day after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve (if Christmas Eve falls on a weekday). These early closes are announced in advance by the exchanges.

Reading market news after the close

Financial news outlets publish market summaries within minutes of the 4 p.m. close. These reports typically show the three major indexes' point and percentage changes, the number of stocks that advanced versus declined, and the day's trading volume. They may also highlight individual stocks or sectors that moved significantly.

If you see a news story dated after 4 p.m. that references "today's close," it is reporting on the official 4 p.m. numbers. If it mentions extended-hours trading, it will say so explicitly, because after-hours prices are not the official close.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I trade after the market closes at 4 p.m.?

Yes, extended-hours trading runs from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern on most brokerages, but volume is much lower and the bid-ask spread (the gap between buy and sell prices) is wider. Prices can move sharply in after-hours trading, and your order may not fill at the price you see.

Why did my stock price change after 4 p.m. if the market closed?

The official market close happens at 4 p.m., but extended-hours trading continues until 8 p.m. If you see a price change after 4 p.m., it is from after-hours trades, not the regular session. Your brokerage shows after-hours prices separately from the official close.

What time does the market open the next day?

Regular trading opens at 9:30 a.m. Eastern on the next trading day. Pre-market trading begins earlier on most brokerages, typically around 4 a.m., but with much lower volume than the regular session.

If I place an order at 3:59 p.m., will it use today's close or tomorrow's open?

If you place a market order in the last minute before 4 p.m., it will execute during the regular session at whatever price the market is trading at that moment — likely very close to the closing price. If you place it after 4 p.m., it will not execute until the next day's open.

How do I know if the market was up or down for the day?

Compare today's closing price to yesterday's closing price. If today's close is higher, the market was up; if lower, it was down. Financial websites show this as a green up arrow or red down arrow next to the closing price, along with the point and percentage change.