The second day of extended trading hours saw the volumes picking up on the bourses today, with the combined cash and futures turnover soaring by 38 per cent over the previous session to Rs 79,000 crore.
The trading volume in the cash market picked up to Rs 19,694 crore at the end of today's trade from Rs 14,979 crore yesterday. Today's volume even surpassed the December average of Rs 15,149 crore.
Besides, the volume in the futures & options segment rose to Rs 59,599.01 crore, compared to the previous session's Rs 42,559.47 crore. However, the F&O segment volume is yet to pick up momentum as the December average was far ahead at Rs 72,618.21 crore.
The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark, the Sensex, ended up by 127.51 points at 17,686.24 points, hitting a 23-month high today. The National Stock Exchange's (NSE) Nifty too settled higher by 0.87 per cent at 5,277.90 points.
With a view to better align the domestic markets with the Asian bourses, the BSE and NSE had late last month announced extended trading by advancing the opening bell to 0900 hrs from yesterday. The closing bell remains the same at 1530 hrs.
A host of brokers had opposed the move saying that the extended trading hours would face several infrastructure bottlenecks.