The index perps trade all night and all weekend. Nobody should sit and watch them. The off-hours push on Trader exists so that you can ignore them until they have done something. This article covers what it fires on, why the threshold is where it is, and what to do when your phone lights up on a Saturday.
What triggers it
While the cash market is shut, Trader measures each index perp against its own price at the last regular close. The close is 4:00pm ET, or 1:00pm on an early close. The first time an index perp is half a percent from that level, Trader sends a push. It sends another at each further half percent.
Each step fires once per direction. If the perp reaches half a percent up, falls back, and reaches it again, you get one push, not two. That restraint is deliberate, and why alerts need a cooldown explains the reasoning.
Why half a percent
The step is tied to something real. Half a percent is about SPY’s expected daily move on 2 October 2026, which was 0.46%. So the first push means the perp has moved roughly a full day’s priced range while the stock market was closed. Smaller than that is noise for most holders. Larger than that, you would want to know.
Turning it on
The push comes from the Trader app on your phone. Open Trader on the phone you carry, sign in, and allow notifications when the app asks. If you declined earlier, the permission lives in your phone’s notification settings under the app’s name. That is all the setup there is. There is no account to link and nothing to connect to your broker.
What the push tells you
It tells you one fact. An index perp is now a stated distance from where it was at the cash close. The perp is a separate market on another venue. It settles in a stablecoin and holds no shares. Its price is a market price, set by the people trading it at that hour.
It is not a forecast of the open. Weekend markets are thinner than the cash session, and a move made on Saturday can be gone by Sunday night. The implied open covers how to hold both ideas at once.
What to do when it fires
Open Trader and look at three things.
First, both index perps. If the S&P 500 perp and the Nasdaq 100 perp have moved together, the move is broad. Second, the seven largest names listed beside them, largest move first. One name carrying the whole move is a different story. Third, the time. A move late on Sunday has less time to reverse before the session than one early on Saturday.
Then check what you hold in your broker and decide whether your plan for the next session changes. Often it will not. The value of the push is that the decision gets made calmly, ahead of time.
What it does not cover
The push watches the two index perps. There is no perp on the Russell 2000 or on IWM, so there is no off-hours reading for small caps. NoVo shows nothing where there is no market to read.