If bonds and currencies can be traded 24 hours a day, why not stocks? That's the question the New York Stock Exchange is asking market participants, Felix writes.

Why it matters: Small traders, especially ones based in Asia, would gain a certain amount of convenience. But off-hours markets can be treacherous places for investors.

The big picture: Off-hours stock-market trading is a gambler's paradise, featuring low volumes and wide spreads. So it's hardly surprising, in a world where gambling has never been more popular or more lucrative, that efforts are being made to expand it.

Where it stands: Blue Ocean and Robinhood offer 24-hour trading to small investors, five days a week, but those are private share sales that don't take place at officially recorded prices.

• If the NYSE were to get involved, prices would become public and available to all market participants. High-frequency traders and hedge funds would be more likely to pay attention and try to make money from nocturnal market anomalies.
• A proposed new exchange, 24X, has already applied to the SEC for permission to operate on a 24-hour basis.

Follow the money: Stock trading occurs mostly in two short windows: just after the market opens at 9:30am, and just before the market closes at 4pm.

• Even though stock volumes in the middle of the day are in a long and seemingly inexorable decline, they still dwarf the volumes during off-hours, which are slowly rising.
• A move to 24-hour trading would spread volumes even more thinly. The result would probably be further migration of institutional investors to the opening and closing sessions, the only times when stocks are available in the kind of quantity that big investors require.

Between the lines: Small investors are much less concerned with volume and liquidity, and much more likely to value convenience and immediacy.

Our thought bubble: Given extremely low-cost access to broadly diversified index funds and ETFs, investing in any individual stocks, especially during off-hours, is a risky gamble by comparison.

• As any casino will tell you, risky gambles are more popular at night.
• Were it to build such a casino, the NYSE would be creating a whole new revenue stream for brokers like Knight and Citadel that specialize in trading against retail investors.

The Federal Trade Commission is set to vote this afternoon on a proposal to ban noncompete agreements, which prevent workers from taking positions at competitors for a period of time after they leave a job, Emily writes.

Why it matters: The ban could be a win for workers — particularly at the low end of the income scale.

• Critics of these agreements say they stifle innovation and wage growth by restricting workers' ability to take new jobs that pay higher wages or offer some other opportunity. They also make it tougher for employers to hire strong talent, lessening competition.
• Some states have laws limiting noncompetes to higher-income folks or banning them altogether — but most don't.

What we're hearing: Experts told Axios that the final rule will likely look similar to the draft proposal, which was a broad prohibition on all noncompetes, even for executives.

Reality check: Any final rule is unlikely to take effect for many years — if ever, as it will surely get tied up in court.

• The Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the ban, has already said it's ready and willing to file a lawsuit.

The big picture: One in five workers is affected by noncompetes, according to the FTC.

• Noncompetes were once used mainly to keep high-paid executives from jumping ship to rivals and taking insider knowledge with them.
• But they have become more common, with even low-wage workers and doctors subject to these restrictions.

Zoom in: Just in the last year, several states introduced bills to prohibit their use for lower-income workers or those in certain sectors like health care (check out this handy tracker).

• Minnesota recently became the first state in over 100 years to ban noncompetes. A bill in New York state was vetoed by the governor.