If on Tuesday, June 30, the moment before the clocks strike 8 p.m. feels just a bit longer than usual, it won't be all in your head. For just one second, time will be standing still and the minute before 8 p.m. ET will not be the usual 60 seconds long — it will be 61 seconds. While the difference of one second isn't that big of a deal for most, market traders around the world are bracing themselves for the worst.
That's because there is one big difference between Tuesday's leap second and those that came before: This will be the first time that a leap second has occurred during trading hours since the markets first went electronic, Bloomberg Business reports. In a business where $4.6 million in stocks are traded worldwide every single second, one second is actually a pretty long time.
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