Weeknight Information-Drift Continuation in Bybit Tokenized US-Stock Perps: follow a >=1.5% move made while the NYSE was shut on a weeknight (prior NYSE close -> 30 min before the next open), hold through the cash session, flat by the NYSE close (17 Bybit stock/ETF USDT perps, 1H, long/short, intrabar stop)

Original Research Lead hypothesis. It is the weeknight counterpart and economic CONTRAST to the promoted 'Closed-Market Overreaction in OKX Tokenized US-Stock Perps' (weekend drift FADE, 73 trades, avg 0.26%). Bybit lists 24/7 USDT perpetuals on US stocks and ETFs (AAPLUSDT.BYBIT, NVDAUSDT.BYBIT, QQQUSDT.BYBIT, ...). They keep trading while the NYSE is shut. On WEEKENDS nothing in traditional markets is open: perp market makers cannot hedge, flow is thin and crypto-native, and the drift is noise that the Monday open fades. That is the promoted strategy. On WEEKNIGHTS the situation differs in two testable ways. (1) Information arrives: after-hours earnings and guidance, Asian and European sessions, and macro releases before the US open. (2) The drift is hedgeable and anchored: CME Globex index futures (ES/NQ) trade almost round the clock, and US pre-market trading opens at 04:00 ET. So a weeknight perp move should reflect real repricing that the cash session then CONTINUES (gap-and-go after news gaps) instead of fading. Hypothesis: the sign of the weeknight closed-market drift predicts the perp's return over the following cash session. POINT-IN-TIME PRE-STUDY (run 2026-10-19 by the Research Lead on local 1H closes, gross, before costs; EDT-only window with fixed UTC anchors: prior close = 20:00 UTC bar, decision = 13:00 UTC bar, i.e. 30 min before the 13:30 UTC open; Mon-Thu closes only, so no weekends). Define N = log(perp at decision / perp at prior NYSE close). BYBIT, 15 names, 103 weeknights, 1,431 name-nights (Apr 21 - Oct 15 2026), FOLLOWING sign(N): |N|>1.0%: 597 events on 101 nights, +0.25% to the NYSE close (t 1.8). |N|>1.5%: 391 events on 95 nights, +0.17% after 1h, +0.35% after 3h, +0.49% to the close (t 2.6, hit 54%). |N|>2.0%: 266 events on 84 nights, +0.36% after 1h, +0.54% to the close (t 2.3). BINANCE stock perps, as an independent venue check (16 names, 127 weeknights, Mar 10 - Oct 15): same sign, weaker. |N|>1.0%: +0.23% to the close (t 1.9); |N|>3%: +0.47% after 1h (t 2.4). The continuation is mostly market-wide: the cross-sectionally demeaned version is about +0.1-0.3% (t 1-2). So the strategy is a per-name follow and is NOT market-hedged. Honest caveats: (a) I computed both the fade and the follow side before choosing the follow side. The pre-study is in-sample over the SAME ~6 months that the walk-forward will use, so it is a motivation, not independent evidence. The only fresh evidence will be the holdout and paper. (b) About 100 distinct nights and 6 months of history is short. Macro nights move many names together, so the effective sample is closer to the number of nights than the number of trades (L238). (c) The weekend fade and this weeknight follow are opposite rules on the same instrument class. Both being right is exactly the falsifiable claim that hedgeability and information flow, not the closed market itself, decide the sign. Universe rule (fixed before any test, no outcome selection): every Bybit US-stock/ETF USDT perp whose local 1H history starts on or before 2026-05-15. That gives AAPL, AMZN, NVDA, TSLA, MSFT, META, GOOGL, COIN, MSTR, HOOD, PLTR, INTC, QQQ, CRCL, SPY, AVGO, ORCL (17). NFLX (listed 2026-07-06) is excluded by the rule. Set parameters['point_in_time_universe']=true so each leg trades from its own first bar. Funding on Bybit stock perps is charged by the engine where available. Execution (capability registry): only BYBIT is traded (24/7). Decisions are taken on 1H bar closes and filled by a market order at that bar's close; on a 24/7 venue that is the next bar's open (next_bar_open_fill: use_equivalent, substitution named here). The protective stop is an intrabar reduce-only stop-market matched by the platform (intrabar_stop: supported). It is not exchange-resting, and the idea does not need offline exchange protection. NYSE timing comes from src.strategies.helpers.sessions on venue 'USEQ' (session bounds, previous/next trading day, early closes), so EST/EDT shifts, half-days and holidays are handled with nothing hard-coded. USEQ bars are neither traded nor subscribed. Cost arithmetic: Bybit taker round trip is about 0.11% plus modeled impact. The pre-study's gross capture at the 1.5% baseline is +0.49% to the close. I expect roughly half of that out of sample (about +0.25-0.30% gross), or about +0.15-0.20% net per trade, which is about 2x the round trip. This is thin, which is why the prediction below is modest.