The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has said no to a proposal by National Stock Exchange (NSE) to extend market trading hours. This was clarified by NSE chief executive Ashishkumar Chauhan on Monday during an analyst call. The decision was taken due to a lack of consensus in the broker community, who had not given required feedback to Sebi. Hence the extension in trading hours is on hold as of now.
"Currently, there is no plan to increase the timings (for trading) as SEBI has returned back the application which we had provided because the stock brokers seemed to have not given the feedback that SEBI wanted," said Chauhan.
Last year there was a proposal from NSE to extend derivative trading hours in a phased manner. The first phase would have trading hours between 6pm and 9pm in addition to the regular trading hours between 9.15 am to 3.30 pm. In the second phase, the trading session for derivatives would be extended to 11.30 pm.
The reason for this extension was to help traders make decisions on the basis of global news even after the normal trading hours. It is to be noted that US markets open at 7 pm Indian time.
According to a report, the Association of National Exchange Members of India (ANMI) had earlier given an in-principle approval to extend trading hours for index futures.