Your five-day week may be history. So will be your Saturday siesta. If some quiet brainstorming happening in the big board rooms crystallises and takes shape, equity market participants may have to put in an extra day at office, every week.
At present, equity markets are open between 9am and 3.30pm on weekdays only. Other segments operated by the stock exchanges such as currency derivatives, interest rate futures are also shut on Saturdays and Sundays.
The stock exchanges are toying with the idea of opening a regular trading window on Saturdays. This window may be for shorter duration in line with the banking hours on Saturdays. “Market is divided. Half of the market participants say it is good and want it. The other half is opposed to it. We will do it when the market really wants it,” said a senior exchange official. He predicted there will be lot of resistance to the move initially.
The buzz has got intense after the exchanges conducted a special trading session in the F&O segment last Saturday.
“Already, the banking system works on Saturday. Even the commodities markets are open. So, it is only logical that stock market also remains open. They seem to be working towards that,” said a senior official with a local brokerage.
While it could severly hit the work-life balance of individuals, the extension could help expand the business base for all market participants such as exchanges, brokers, trading platforms in a market that are suffering from shrinking volumes.
However, officials said the proposal is still in initial stages and would require clearances from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). Last time, when such an extension was proposed, it took more than a year for final implementation.
In late 2008, National Stock Exchange, the leader in volumes, had forwarded a request from market participants to commence trading at 8 AM, nearly two hours ahead of the earlier opening time of 9.55 AM. The move will help exchanges to absorb the global shocks better and smoothen out the gap up openings, it was reasoned.
After much consideration, in October 2009, Sebi allowed exchanges to fix their timing between 9am and 5pm.
Even after this clearance, exchanges did not go ahead immediately as there were lot of protests and concerns from the market participants, who were worried about increasing overheads and physical stress.
In December 2009, Bombay Stock Exchange took the plunge by extending the trading hours by 10 minutes. NSE went the whole hog by extending it to 9 AM soon after. Eventually, both exchanges decide to start at 9 after giving sufficient preparation time after interference from Sebi.
A section of the market had strongly resisted the exchanges’ move to extend the trading hours couple of years ago. But, eventually it had to fall in line.
