"Marshall McLuhan said, 'We have become a global village,' CNBC has helped lead the way in creating a global village for the financial markets. Readers will finish CNBC 24/7 Trading feeling smarter about the markets and really understanding how important it is to be in the information flow." -Mary Meeker, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter

"CNBC 24/7 Trading unlocks the mystery of how individual investors can invest and trade everywhere all the time. This book will become the investment bible that levels the playing field between Wall Street and Main Street." -Robert J. Froehlich, Vice Chairman, Kemper Funds Group Managing Director, Scudder Kemper Investments

"TD Waterhouse has operations in eight countries, so we see that growth in international investing is accelerating. To be successful investing around the globe, investors need both information and insight. CNBC 24/7 Trading covers what individual investors need to know in a thorough, easy to understand way." -Steve McDonald, CEO, TD Waterhouse

From the Foreword

"CNBC 24/7 Trading . . . embraces the reality that the markets never stand still . . . this book is a guide to the emerging 24/7 marketplace, a road map to the potential rewards for investors who can grasp that marketplace's opportunities and understand its risks."-Sue Herera

"This definitive book on investing in the 24/7 markets provides the comprehensive tools for active investors and market pros alike. Offering information and advice on trading, obtaining research, measuring market volatility, and assessing local market risk, no smart investor should venture without it." -Linda R. Killian, CFA, Principal, Renaissance Capital

Nasdaq chairman Frank Zarb says, "In a few years, trading securities will be digital, global, and accessible 24 hours a day. People will be able instantly to get stock-price quotations and instantly to execute a trade, day or night, anywhere on the globe, with stock markets linked and almost all electronic." Zarb thinks as many as 500 companies will be tradable 24/7 within three to five years.

The advent of 24-hour trading doesn't mean you must trade 24 hours a day, only that you can. The entire world is at your fingertips, day or night. So if you have a flash of blinding insight at 4:15 A.M., you can act on it immediately instead of having to wait for "the market" to open -- "the market" being, for most readers, the U.S. markets.

Another insight might arrive at 4:15 P.M. It may come from a news release, a morning newspaper you don't read until the afternoon, or a corporate earnings announcement embargoed until "after the close." The New York Stock Exchange is open for business from 9:30 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., Eastern time. So if you are in San Francisco, Tokyo, or Istanbul, the "regular" hours of the NYSE are inconvenient to begin with. Even for investors in the Eastern time zone of the United States, keeping up with prices and events during a workday can be difficult. Many working people can't watch CNBC at the office and can't access financial sites on the Internet at their desks. In other words, unless you work in the finance industry and can watch CNBC and track financial Web sites during the workday, you're probably trading during evenings, nights, and weekends -- when, obviously, the NYSE and other U.S. markets are closed.

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