Everyone is familiar with “day trading” even if you don’t generally do it yourself. But it is reasonable to wonder if there is money to be made while we are sleeping. Let’s call it "night trading".

First, let’s stop and think about why people get involved in day trading. In recent years, it has developed a bit of a bad reputation. However, there are some good reasons why someone could be interested in it.

• Daytime is when the market is open. Practical!
• Day traders are usually looking for frequent small wins. Holding overnight leaves you vulnerable to outsized movements – gaps – in prices.
• Some brokers will allow for higher leverage during the day, so long as positions are unwound before the official market close.

Is the daytime when money is made?

What if you did the opposite of day trading? Suppose you got in at the close, held overnight, and sold at the next day’s open. Is this an overlooked source of profits or a foolish contrarian strategy?

At swingex.com we did our own test on recent data. We wanted to keep it strictly in the post-COVID era while also capturing a variety of market conditions. It is possible that the benefits of night trading, if any, are different in bear markets and bull markets.

We used results for the S&P 500 index from 2022 through 2024, plus the first half of 2025. This gives us the bear market of 2022 and then two strong years, followed by whatever you want to call the first part of 2025.

The big picture:

• Total intraday return: 19.89%
• Total overnight return: 12.05%

So the daytime wins! In recent years, at least. This still leaves open the possibility of seasonal trends or other factors affecting the outcome. We have calculated the month-by-month totals to see if that might reveal something interesting. The numbers are provided below for your own interpretation and entertainment.

We didn’t see anything useful, did you?

There can still be something lurking in the data that is not captured in the table above, not least is the fact that painful drawdowns are more likely to occur overnight.

One thing we can say is that the returns generated overnight come with less effort and attention needed. You don’t even have to be awake!

In the end, we are left with asking one more question: Why limit yourself to only daytime or only nighttime?