Stock Market Timings in India

Stock market is a place where traders come to invest their money in various sectors and earn a profit from them. Earning money through the stock market has always been intriguing and most popular across the world. Although before entering the stock market an investor must do complete research and know the nuances of stock market investing. One of the most important things to keep in mind is the timings of the stock market. Let’s take a look at the stock market timings. 

At What Time Does Stock Market Open?

Indian stock market trading takes place from Monday to Friday and no trading happens on weekends. Different exchanges have different timings. Stock Market has different exchanges example – NSE, BSE, NCDEX, MCX, etc where buying, selling, and issuing of new securities takes place. 

The two major exchanges of India are NSE or the National Stock Exchange of India Limited and BSE or the Bombay Stock Exchange of India Limited. Other exchanges are either national or regional. 

BSE Timings

BSE was established in 1875 and it is Asia’s oldest and largest stock exchange. It has more than 6,000 companies listed on it. BSE provides trade in equities, currencies, derivatives, mutual funds, and debt instruments. 

BSE timings from Monday to Friday are – 9:15 A.M to 3:30 P.M

NSE Timings

NSE was established in 1992 and started trading in 1994. It is India’s largest financial market. In terms of Equity trading volume, NSE ranks 4th, and keeping pace with the changing times it has developed an electronic market.

NSE timings from Monday to Friday – 9:15 A.M to 3:30 P.M

Indian Stock Market Timings

Indian Stock market timings are from 9:15 A.M to 3:30 P.M but there are different activities related to the stock market and has different timings for that. These trading activities are divided into three slots : 

1. Pre-opening Session – starts at 9:00 A.M and ends at 9:15 A.M. This slot too is divided into three parts they are :

• 9:00 A.M – 9:08 A.M – In these 8 minutes the trader place orders for any transaction in the equity segment. These orders get preferential treatment during the execution. 
• 9:08 A.M – 9:12 A.M – After sealing the trade in the previous time slot. This time slot determines the prices of securities. This process works on a multilateral price order matching system. 

• 9:12 A.M – 9:15 A.M – This is the slot that is a transitional phase between the pre-opening session and normal session. Orders are neither revoked or modified during this slot. 

2. Normal Session – This session starts at 9:15 A.M and ends at 3:30 P.M This trading session is known as the ‘Primary Trading Session’. Order placed during this session follows the bilateral order matching system and prices get determined based on the forces of demand and supply. One of the shortcomings of the bilateral order matching systems is that is it highly volatile and reflect sudden fluctuations of security. 

3. Closing Session – The trading ends at 3:30 P.M and a bell rings to conclude the session. This session is divided into two slots.

• 3:30 P.M to 3:40 P.M – at this time slot the closing prices are decided by taking a weighted average of the trading securities prices between 3:00 P.M to 3:00 P.M. 
• 3:40 P.M to 4:00 P.M – this session is called the post-market order session. This slot is available for traders trading in equities.

Indian Stock Market Intraday Square off Time

There are various squaring off things of various brokers. These timings are set by the broker to auto-square off the trade if the trader forgets to end the trade. 

Square off timings of different brokers are: 

Aftermarket Orders

These time slots are opened after the market closes at 3:30 P.M and before the market opens at 9:15 A.M. These slots are for the ones who cannot trade during the time of trading hours. 

Windows for trading are opened at different times by brokers for different financial securities. The advantage of this trade is that the trader need not be present at the exchange to execute the trade.