I always wondered why someone who trades in the markets would live out West where you need to be ready at 6:30 for the market open The equity market opens at 9

I always wondered why someone who trades in the markets would live out West where you need to be ready at 6:30 for the market open The equity market opens at 9:30 Eastern which, as you said, requires being ready by 6:30 Pacific. Since we're discussing bond markets though, you should be aware that the markets we trade in typically start trading by 8:00 am Eastern. We primarily trade via Bloomberg FIET, MarketAxess and TradeWeb. We trade about $4 billion per day. The head of fixed income at my investment bank chews out any IT person that is unaware of this fact. It's his pet peeve after being told for decades by IT people, "What's the big deal if the system wasn't up until 9 am? The market doesn't open until 9:30!"