Stock Market timings in India. There are many types of markets in India such as Equity market, Commodity market, and Agri-commodity market, etc. however, since different markets have different types of investors, the timings of opening and closing of these markets varies as per the convenience of investors. Thus, investors looking to trade or invest in any of these markets should keep track of the timings so that their buying and selling orders are carried smoothly.
Before we move on to look at different timings of the market, there are few common timings that all these exchanges have in common, such as:
All these markets are closed during weekends, that is on all Saturdays and Sundays
All these markets remain closed on National Holidays, you can find the list of holidays of different exchange here:
Equity Market:
Commodity Market:
Timings of Indian Markets:
Contents
Coming to the timings of these markets, as mentioned earlier, different types of exchanges have different timings, but since this blog is mostly dedicated to equity markets, we are going to talk mostly about the timings of the equity market.
The normal trading timing of Indian equity markets is between 9:15 AM in the morning to 3:30 PM in the evening. Also, there are no lunch breaks in the stock market timings.
The entire trading session of the Indian equity market is divided into three major sessions:
- Pre-Opening Session
- Normal Session (also known as a continuous session)
- Post-Closing Session
Let us look at each of these sessions and understand why they exist, their importance in the stock market timings in India.
Pre-Opening Session:
The first session of the market is called the pre-opening session which takes place between 9:00 AM in the morning to 9:15 AM, that is, for fifteen minutes. The pre-opening session is further divided into three sub-sessions:
Order Entry Session (9:00-9:08 AM):
As the name of the session suggests, this is the session where you can place an order to buy and sell. One can also modify or even cancel their orders during this session.
Order Matching Session (9:08-9:12 AM):
Once the orders are entered during the order entry session, the order matching session is used for matching the buy and sell orders and for calculating the opening price of the normal session.
You cannot place buy and sell orders, nor can modify or cancel the orders during this session
Buffer Period (9:12-9:15 AM):
The third and final session of the preopening session is the buffer session which is also known as the transition period. This is a three-minute bracket is used for a smooth transition between pre-opening session and normal session. No additional orders can be placed during this time, also existing bets already placed during the order entry session (from 9:08-9:12 AM) cannot be revoked.
The opening price of the session is calculated by using a multilateral order matching system. Before this, a bilateral order matching system was used which caused a lot of volatility whoever the market opened.
Most people, especially retail investors do not use the preopening session for their trading, either due to lack of knowledge or because most of them still find the normal trading session comfortable.
Also Read:
Normal Session (9:15 AM-3:30 PM):
This is the primary share market timing where most of the trading and investing takes place. The investors can place their buy and sell order and the system follows a bilateral order matching system where price determination is done through demand and supply forces.
As I mentioned earlier that most investors and traders do not use the pre-opening session for placing orders and that is why you will often see huge volatility even in the normal trading sessions.
Once the market timings are over at 3:30, the next session is called the post-closing session
Post-Closing Session:
The closing time of the Indian stock market is marked at 3:30 PM, and no exchange of orders takes place after this period. The post-closing session itself, however, is further divided into two sub-sessions:
- Closing Price Calculation
- Post Stock Market Closing
Closing Price Calculation (3:30-3:40 PM):
Once the market is closed and no order is being taken, the closing price of the individual stock as well as of the indices is determined.
For determining the closing price of individual stocks, the weighted average of prices is taken from 3:00 PM to 3:30 PM.
In the case of indices, the closing price of an index is the weighted average of the constituent stocks of the index for the last 30 minutes that is, from 3:00 PM to 3:30 PM.
Post Stock Market Closing (3:40-4:00 PM):
The second and the final sub-session of the closing session of the equity market is post stock market closing, this is the period where bids for the following day’s trade can be placed. Bids placed at this time are confirmed, but only if an adequate number of buyers and sellers are available in the market.
After-market Closing:
Post this time-frame, no transactions can take place, investors can still place after-market orders for securities of chosen companies which would be allocated at the opening price the following day.
Muhurat trading:
So far we have talked about the normal stock market timings in India and seen how each trading session is divided into many sessions and sub-sessions.
Apart from the normal trading sessions carried out in the market on a daily basis, there is always a special trading session carried out by the market, called the Muhurat trading session.
The muhurat trading session takes place during Diwali, which is considered to be an auspicious time to do business. The trading time is usually declared a few days before the Diwali session but usually happens during the evening time between 5:30 PM to 6:40 PM.
Conclusion:
If the timings and the sessions and sub-sessions mentioned above seems to be too complicated for you to understand, don’t worry, you can still trade or invest in stocks during your normal trading hours, without worrying.
While it is necessary to know about the stock market timings in India, it is not something that will help you become a successful investor. If you want to become a successful investor, you need to understand the basics of investing, such as what is a stock, how to start investing, what is Nifty and Sensex, and how to value stocks using different valuation approaches to find the right buying price of stocks.
I hope you find this article useful and knowledgeable, if you have any queries, feel free to comment them below.
[…] Also Read: Stock Market Timings in India […]