Pre market and after hours quotes

Just Stock Quotes, 28 September 2026

Open the app at seven in the morning or seven in the evening and some of your stocks will show two prices. One is the regular session close. The other carries a small PM or AH badge and its own change. This guide explains where the second price comes from, why the app keeps the two apart, and how much to trust a print made when most of the market is asleep.

The three sessions

The regular session runs from 9:30 in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon, Eastern time, on trading days. That is when the official open, high, low and close are set, when volume is deepest and when the price you see is the price you would get.

The pre market session runs before it, from as early as 4:00 in the morning, and the after hours session runs after it, until 8:00 in the evening. Stocks trade in both, on electronic venues, with far fewer participants. Some brokers let their customers in; many do not.

Why two prices

Suppose a company reports earnings at 4:05, just after the close, and the stock jumps eight percent in after hours trading. A quote that showed only the latest price would say the stock is up eight percent, measured from a close that is now an hour old. A quote that showed only the close would say nothing happened. Neither is right.

So the app shows both. The regular session close stays as the anchor, with its change for the day. The extended hours price appears beside it with the AH badge and its own change, measured from that close. The two changes are never blended into one number, so a glance answers both questions: what did it close at, and what is it doing now.

Before the open the same logic runs with the PM badge. The pre market price and its change from yesterday's close sit beside the close, and when the bell rings at 9:30 the regular session takes over.

How to read a badge

A price with a badge is real money changing hands, but on a thin tape. A few things to keep in mind.

Volume is small. A move of three percent on a few thousand shares in the pre market can vanish in the first minute of regular trading when real volume arrives. Treat an extended hours print as a hint about the open, not as the open.

Spreads are wide. With fewer buyers and sellers, the gap between the best bid and the best offer stretches, and a single trade can print well away from where the stock will trade once the session opens.

News is the usual cause. Earnings, guidance, a drug trial result, a takeover. When a stock shows a large extended hours move, the news tab on its page nearly always has the reason at the top.

What the badge tells you about your alerts

Price alerts watch extended hours too. If you set an alert for a price and the stock crosses it at 6 in the evening on an earnings print, the alert fires then, not the next morning. That is usually what you want, because the news is the reason you set the alert. It also means an alert can fire on a thin print that the open does not confirm, so read the badge before you act on the ping.

Closed

Between 8 in the evening and 4 in the morning, and all weekend, nothing trades. The app shows the last regular close and, if there was one, the last extended hours print, and waits. The pulse line above your watchlist says so in its own way.

The short version

One price during the session. Two prices outside it, and the badge tells you which is which. The close is the anchor; the badged price is the latest word, spoken quietly, in a mostly empty room. Listen to it, and wait for the bell before you believe it completely.